People in spotter photos: KUG, GDPR and pictures of crew and passengers

The Boeing taxis slowly past, the captain waves from the cockpit window, and on the observation deck a child is filming with a smartphone. A lovely moment – and at the same time the instant a pure aircraft photo becomes a picture with people in it. People in spotter photos are legally the trickiest topic in the hobby, because this is where the right to one’s own image, the GDPR and sometimes even criminal law come together. This article sorts out what the Kunsturhebergesetz (KUG, the German Art Copyright Act) requires, when the GDPR applies and how to handle pictures of crew, passengers and visitors.

The short answer

A photo in which a person is recognizable and defines the picture may in Germany generally only be published with their consent. There are exceptions, for example when the person is merely incidental to a location or is taking part in a public event – but they are narrower than many spotters believe. Merely taking photos in public space, by contrast, is largely unproblematic. The decisive moment is when you put the picture online, send it to a database or share it in a group.

Where and whether you may photograph at an airport at all is a separate question. It depends on the operator’s house rules and security areas and is covered in the overview Is plane spotting allowed? as well as in the article on the airport operator’s house rules. This article deals exclusively with the people in your pictures.

The legal framework: KUG, GDPR and Criminal Code

Three sets of rules interact when it comes to people in aircraft photos. You don’t have to know them by heart, but you should know what each of them covers.

Kunsturhebergesetz: the right to one’s own image

The KUG is over a hundred years old, but its core still applies today. Section 22 KUG provides that images of people may only be distributed or publicly displayed with the consent of the person pictured. Anyone who was paid for the photo has, in case of doubt, consented. After a person’s death, you need the relatives’ consent for ten years.

Section 23 KUG names four cases in which it can be done without consent:

1. Images from the sphere of contemporary history – that is, pictures in which there is a genuine public interest in information.
2. Incidental persons – people who appear only alongside a landscape or location.
3. Assemblies and processions – pictures of events in which the people pictured took part.
4. Art – images not made on commission, if distribution serves a higher interest of art.

The follow-up clause in paragraph 2 is important: even one of these exceptions does not help if publication violates the legitimate interests of the person pictured. A violation of Sections 22 and 23 is even a criminal offense under Section 33 KUG – with imprisonment of up to one year or a fine, though only on complaint. In practice, disputes usually land on the table as a demand to cease and desist or to delete, not before a criminal court.

GDPR: as soon as you share publicly

A photo in which a person is recognizable contains personal data. The General Data Protection Regulation exempts purely private activities: under Art. 2(2)(c) GDPR, it does not apply to processing by a natural person in the course of a purely personal or household activity. Your photo archive on your home hard drive typically falls under that.

Publishing is different. As early as 2003, in the Lindqvist case (C-101/01), the European Court of Justice ruled that publishing personal data on the internet no longer falls under the private exemption, because the data then becomes accessible to an unlimited number of people. If you post a picture publicly on Instagram, in a photo database or on your website, you are therefore within the scope of data protection law.

How the KUG and the GDPR interact in detail is not conclusively settled in legal literature and case law. For the journalistic sphere, the opening clause in Art. 85 GDPR allows national special rules, and courts continue to apply the KUG there. For hobby photographers, it comes down in practice to a similar balancing: is there a legitimate interest in publication, and does the interest of the person pictured in not being shown outweigh it? The KUG’s value judgments – incidental, event, contemporary history – remain a good guide for this.

Criminal law: Section 201a StGB

A hard limit is drawn by Section 201a StGB. Among other things, it is a criminal offense to make or transmit, without authorization, images that display a person’s helplessness, or images that show a deceased person in a grossly offensive manner. The penalty range goes up to two years in prison. Acts carried out to safeguard overriding legitimate interests, such as reporting on current events, are exempt. Here it is not only about publishing – even pressing the shutter can be a criminal offense.

The two questions before every upload

In everyday life at the fence, you don’t need statutes, but two questions:

1. Is a person recognizable? It’s not only the face that counts. Name tags on the uniform, striking clothing, build, tattoos or simply the context can make someone identifiable. This matters especially with crews: registration, date, time and flight number often narrow it down to exactly one crew, which colleagues can identify immediately.
2. Is the person the subject or a coincidence? The test: could you remove them from the picture without changing its message and effect? Then there is a lot in favor of incidental. If they stand in the middle of the picture, draw the eye or are the reason for the photo, they are the subject.

If the answer is “yes” both times, you need either consent, a viable exception or a different picture.

Typical situations at the airport

The following table is a guide for common spotter situations. It does not replace a case-by-case review, but it shows roughly where the limits run.

Picture situation	Recognizable?	Subject?	Assessment
Landing approach, crew barely visible behind the cockpit windows	no	no	Green – pure aircraft shot
Taxiing shot as a wide view, crew waves as a tiny dot in the frame	barely	no	Green – person is not the subject
Pilot filling the frame in the cockpit window with a telephoto lens	yes	yes	Red without consent
Regional jet at the boarding stairs, passengers small in the background	partly	no	Green to yellow – more likely incidental
Family boarding, zoomed in tightly	yes	yes	Red without consent
Ramp agent in a high-visibility vest, from behind and far away	no	no	Green
Marshaller guiding an aircraft in, large in the frame with a name tag	yes	yes	Yellow to red – ask or crop differently
Full observation deck as a scene, aircraft in the background	partly	partly	Yellow – overall scene yes, individual portraits no
Christening of a special livery, public event with an audience	yes	partly	Yellow – event, but still show consideration
Child at the fence waving at an Airbus	yes	yes	Red without the parents’ consent
Evacuation or injured people after an incident	yes	yes	Red – legally tricky even when photographing
Fellow spotter with a camera, with their okay	yes	yes	Green – consent is given

The difference between row 2 and row 3 is the focal length alone: the same person, the same workplace, but once a dot and once a portrait.

Special case: crew and ground staff

Pilots, flight attendants, marshallers, baggage handlers and fuel truck drivers are at work. They can’t turn away when a telephoto lens is pointed at them, and they did not choose their workplace as a photo backdrop. That is why a cockpit shot that fills the frame is something different from a wide shot of the taxiing aircraft.

The crew is also not a “person of contemporary history” just because they fly a large jet. A public interest in information can exist with a genuine event – such as an extraordinary landing – but hardly with a normal taxi on a Tuesday morning.

Pragmatic solutions:

• Choose the wide shot. To document registration, type and livery, you don’t need the cockpit filling the frame.
• Ask if you can. At fly-ins, open house days or in general aviation, you often get into conversation with crews. A quick “May I show the picture online?” creates clarity.
• A wave is not a yes. The friendly greeting from the cockpit window is a nice gesture, but not consent to publication in a worldwide database.
• Watch for name tags. Uniforms often carry names. If a tag can be read, you make the person especially easy to identify.

If you yourself get to stand in a cockpit, you will find the rules for that in the article Photos in the cockpit.

Passengers: in the terminal, at the stairs, on board

Passengers are in a special position. They may be traveling privately, on business or in a situation that is nobody else’s business – a farewell, illness, a vacation with a new partner. Anyone who is recognizably shown boarding reveals place, time and often the destination.

• Apron and boarding stairs: If the aircraft is the subject and the people are small and interchangeable, there is a lot in favor of incidental. If you zoom in on individuals, you need their consent.
• In the terminal: The airport’s house rules also apply here, and they partly restrict photography. What is allowed there is described in the article Photographing in the terminal.
• On board: Fellow passengers and cabin crew can hardly be left out in the cramped cabin. Window pictures are usually unproblematic, cabin pictures with recognizable seatmates are not. More on this is in the guide Photographing and filming on board.

Observation decks and events

On terraces such as the Hamburg Airport observation deck or the Munich Airport visitors’ hill, many people stand side by side. A scene with an audience and an aircraft in the background can be fine as an overall shot. As soon as you single out an individual person, a couple or a child, it becomes a portrait.

At airshows and open house days, the exception for events may help you under some circumstances – but only for pictures that show the event as a whole, not for individual portraits from the crowd. The guide Photographing airshows has tips for photography at such events.

Accidents, incidents, emergencies

This is where the leeway ends. An aircraft with a smoking engine on the runway, a rescue operation on the apron, passengers on the escape slides: such pictures can be documented as events of contemporary history – but injured, helpless and dead people do not belong in the picture. Section 201a StGB makes even taking such pictures a criminal offense if there is no overriding legitimate interest.

Then there is the human side: never obstruct emergency responders, keep your distance and consider whether the world really needs your picture. If security on site asks you to delete pictures, you will find the assessment in the article Do I have to delete photos if security asks me to?.

Make unrecognizable or shoot differently?

Usually the best solution is not to photograph a problem in the first place: a shorter focal length, a step to the side, waiting a few seconds until the group has moved on. A crop that takes the person out of the picture is cleaner than any retouching. How to set your crops deliberately is explained in the article Cropping aircraft photos properly.

Context, caption and metadata

An inconspicuous picture can become problematic because of its surroundings:

• The caption. “Crew lands jet hard” plus a recognizable pilot is something different from “D-AIxx on final approach.” A publication is assessed as a whole.
• The linkage. Registration, date, flight number and a recognizable face together give very precise information about a person.
• The metadata. GPS data and capture time travel along in the file. How to control them deliberately is covered in the guide Metadata for aircraft photos.

The same applies to platforms like Instagram or short videos on YouTube Shorts, TikTok and Reels – with the addition that videos capture more people and often voices as well. Your own rights to your photos, by the way, are a completely different topic; the article Copyright in aircraft photos covers that.

If you want to sell pictures with people, you generally need explicit consent, which you should ideally put in writing – details in the guide Selling aircraft photos.

Austria and Switzerland

In Austria, Section 78 of the Urheberrechtsgesetz (Copyright Act) protects images of people: they may not be published if doing so would violate the legitimate interests of the person pictured. This is a different approach from the German consent principle, but it leads to similar results for portraits in sensitive situations. In Switzerland, protection of one’s image follows from the general right of personality in the Civil Code and from data protection law. You can find more on the spotting legal situation in both countries in the articles on Austria and Switzerland, and for further destinations in the overview Spotting abroad.

What to keep in mind

• Decide at the spot, not at the computer. Focal length and position solve most cases before they arise.
• Don’t stretch “incidental.” “It’s just background” is no longer true once someone draws the eye.
• Don’t reduce recognizability to faces. Uniform, name tag and context are often enough.
• Take deletion requests seriously. A hobby photo is not worth a dispute. A matter-of-fact reaction ends almost every case.
• Respect for fellow spotters. Other spotters also don’t want to end up online as a portrait without being asked – more on this in the spotter etiquette.

Conclusion

People in spotter photos are not forbidden, but a matter of balancing. The KUG generally requires consent for recognizable portraits, the GDPR comes into play as soon as you share publicly, and in emergencies criminal law draws a clear line. For the actual passion – aircraft, registrations, liveries – you almost never need recognizable people. Where someone is in the picture anyway, a wide shot, a crop or a quick question helps more than any retouching.