Is street photography ok/accepted in UK, Portugal, Belgium and Germany?

There is a nice summary available on Wikimedia describing how the consent rules vary by country: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Country_specific_consent_requirements

Similar page allows to check the local freedom of panorama rules: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Freedom_of_panorama

Each street photographer has their own style and work ethics but from my experience, whatever the law permits, one should never sneak but rather be very open with the intention of taking the picture and smile a lot (nothing beats that one). This helps to avoid many unpleasant situations and makes the trip more enjoyable.

In Germany you can take photos for personal reasons as much as you like. If you tak pictures of persons you should ask however.

Legal restrictions exist for publishing due to personality rights and copyright. The Kunsturhebergesetzt (Copy right law for works of art) prevents publishing photos where persons are the central part of the picture (i.e. if you take a picture of a monument and a person runs by this is legally no problem) The Urhebergesetz (copyright law) otherwise regulates that reproduction of copyrighted material requires permission of the copyright holder. Buildings are copyrighted by the Architect. There however is the so called Panoramafreiheit (freedom of panorama) which allows pictures of buildings from publicly available spaces.

The Google Street View situation is not based on legal restrictions, however. When Google started taking their pictures there was a big campaign by media stating that Google would take too many pictures and people feared those pictures would look through windows and would show too much detail. To avoid further conflict Google then volunteered to offer a way for house owners etc. to blur out their buildings.

In general people in Germany are concerned about their privacy which might make this even more complicated than the law.

As for Poland, I have never heard of that. I have read about the privacy law(at least when it comes for making photos of people), and rule of thumb is: you can’t disclose any information that would allow the identification of some individual(name, personal ID, card number, but this also includes photos/videos), but you can keep them for your personal use.

I also guess(although I can’t remember nor do I have time to check that now) that there’s some special case allowing you to show other people when it comes to some public events; television does that all the time.

A few months ago, this issue was up for debate in the European Parliament. Whether the Freedom of Panorama, FoP, was going to be restricted within the EU was going to be up for a vote on July 9. The bill in question would require “commercial use of such reproductions [to] require authorization from the right holder”.

However, due, in part to a write-in campaign, FoP was saved, for those countries that had it to begin with. This includes Germany, but not France, Italy, Belgium and Greece.

Germany does have rather strict privacy laws. Here’s a somewhat old blog post with some additional info, specifically on photography in public places.

I am not aware of any country in Western Europe with a blanket ban on street photography.

Some countries have complex privacy law (including case law) that makes publishing photo of persons without prior written authorization potentially sensitive but that’s a completely different issue. “Copyright” protection is also very extensive and can extend to buildings or lightning (most famously the Tour Eiffel light show) in ways that would not hold in the US.

Finally, what got Google Street View in Germany are data protection laws. Each EU country has a data protection authority in charge of overseeing/controlling all files that contain personal information, which, in Germany, was deemed to include pictures of your residence. The issue here is automated processing/systematic publication, not taking pictures per se.

So taking pictures for your own use or even publishing them in the US is almost certainly not an issue but any sort of local use (especially commercial) is fraught with difficulties, especially if there are people on the picture.

Quite apart from the details of the law, I have heard about some people getting angry at being photographed so in a way street photography is not fully accepted in Europe.

In the UK, the setup is broadly similar to the US. As the Metropolitan (ie, London’s) Police website says

Members of the public and the media do not need a permit to film or
photograph in public places and police have no power to stop them
filming or photographing incidents or police personnel.

[…]

Officers do not have the power to delete digital images or destroy
film at any point during a search. Deletion or destruction may only
take place following seizure if there is a lawful power (such as a
court order) that permits such deletion or destruction.

Although some photographers’ experiences suggest that you cannot always rely on any given policeman knowing this.

In France, Wikimedia Commons notes that

Article 9 of French Civil Code states: “Everyone has the right to
respect for his private life”. This is generally considered to
include one’s right to the own image, even if it is taken in a public
space.

According to case law and legal doctrine, photographs taken of (one or
more) individuals require authorisation. Just taking someone’s photo
without consent (in private or public space) can be considered as an
invasion of privacy and gives them the right to claim for cessation of
the wrongful conduct. Everyone is legally protected from unauthorised
distribution, publication or commercialisation of a picture of
himself. The permission has to be interpreted in a strict way (only to
the extent expressly consented to by the subject)

though it goes on to note that certain exceptions exist (which seem to me primarily to relate to the incidental and minor appearance of individuals in photographs taken in public places). So the scenery is probably OK, but if there are people in your photo, be careful that you are not making them a major feature of the image.

I have been involved in a traffic accident in France, and being uninjured and having followed normal UK practice of photographing everything and everyone from as many angles as possible, was surprised when the attending officer was more upset with me than with any of the drivers. That in the heat of the moment I was unable to remember any of the French verbs related to deleting images, and thus could not promise to immediately rectify the situation, did not help.