Parkside Ave Instagram Shows Everyday Life And Fuels Privacy Row

PROSPECT-LEFFERTS GARDENS, BROOKLYN — An Instagram account that popped up this summer shares unremarkable snapshots of everyday life in the area of the Parkside Avenue subway station.

But it's caused a furious debate about privacy from residents who say they don't want to end up on a page with hundreds of followers just because they walked by a subway station.

A recent discussion on a neighborhood Facebook group about the Instagram page generated dozens of comments, both from people who find the page a charming tapestry of their neighborhood and a brazen violation of privacy.

"Does anyone know who is behind https://www.instagram.com/parksideav/?" one person asked. "Pictures of my family and friends are being posted without knowledge or consent and will report to Instagram if not rectified. Think pictures being taken from a roof."

Most of the often blurry or zoomed in photos from the account, @parksideav, do seem to be taken from an elevated angle from a nearby building.

The people featured are seen walking their dogs, standing on the corner, blowing their nose or doing any of the number of mundane things people do on Brooklyn streets on a normal day. But they also don't appear to be knowing participants in the neighborhood photo project.

Patch reached out for comment to the Instagram page's administrator Thursday and will update if the message is returned.

UPDATE: Parkside Ave Instagram Creator Speaks About Controversial Page

"Ugh. This is terrible," one Facebook commenter said. "Up close shots of people's phones, images of neighbors getting into a fight, children, homeless folks -- its totally insensitive."

That candidness, though, is also what makes it unique.

"The problem is - I love this Instragram account," another commenter said. "It seems to be documenting life on the spot still untouched by the developers."

The oldest photo on the account was posted in June and shows a man and a woman having a conversation outside of the subway station.

Since then, it has posted 127 pictures: A man spilling his drink, a couple fighting, kids dancing. It now boasts 800 followers.

While most people on the large neighborhood Facebook page concede that pictures taken in public are fair game, some don't think children should be involved.

But legally, whoever is behind the page is in the clear.

"People have no legitimate expectation of privacy in the things they voluntarily expose to the public," Ron Kuby, a New York civil rights attorney, told Patch.

"What is it that you voluntarily expose to the public? When you walk down a public street, you are voluntarily exposing your face and body to the public. You have no expectation of privacy in walking down the street."

The question of whether the page is artful or tasteful is a subjective one. But the poster won't face any government recourse for publishing images of people in public places, according to Kuby.

If parents really don't want their child's picture available to the masses, they'll have to take drastic measures, Kuby said.

"If you don’t want your children shown in some random Instagram account on some random page in cyberspace," Kuby said, "you can wrap their little faces up with a scarf. Or put a paper bag over their head."

A photo of a boy running with his dog — posted around the time the Facebook discussion began — garnered several comments supportive of the page.

"In relation to what's being discussed... I'm a visual anthropologist and I think what you're doing fits within the realm of that field, and is awesome -- so keep it up," one commenter wrote.

"Agreed!" the page responded. "At times I feel like I am looking into a microscope and studying an ever-evolving organism."

(Correction: An earlier version of this story conflated the number of followers this Instagram page has and the number of pages it follows. The page has about 800 followers, not more than 5,000.)

Photo: Patch Staff