British tourists going to Spain this summer have been warned over a law which is very easy to break that could land you a £35,000 fine and an arrest.
The law on police is very different to the UK which could see tourists caught out in sunny Spanish spots like Ibiza, Barcelona or Gran Canaria.
While sun, sea, sand and sangrias are plentiful in sunny Spain, British tourists in destinations like Madrid and Magaluf are being told to avoid one big pitfall in a law that differs to the UK.
Filming and photographing the police – especially Guardia Civil, which are the more serious armed police force that deal with live incidents such as swooping to make arrests and security threats – is not always allowed in Spain under the Public Safety Law introduced in 2015.
Although the law around it has been softened in more recent years, it could still land you a huge fine if you fall foul of it even for an innocuous Instagram post.
One holidaymaker who recently returned from Spain nearly fell foul of the law. He told the Express: “I was walking off the beach when I saw a big Guardia Civil police van with its lights on and about 20 police stood next to it blocking access across the promenade. Without really thinking about it, as I got closer I pulled my phone out to snap a pic of the drama and immediately I was stopped.
“A massive police officer walked up to me and demanded to know why I was taking photos. He asked to see my ID and then his colleague radioed my details into their office, running my name and date of birth and took photos of my ID card. They asked when I was returning to the UK, why I was there and warned me that I was not allowed to take photos of police during an operation. I apologised profusely but then I was warned that if the photo was to surface anywhere on social media, I would hear from the police again in future.”
Failing to provide ID in this situation is also an offence, so you have to make sure you always have ID with you when you’re out in Spain, such as a Driving Licence or passport.
You must provide photo ID if requested by a police officer. This includes the Guardia Civil and national, regional and local police forces. The police have the right to hold you at a police station until your identity is confirmed.
More recently Spain’s interior ministry has decreed that it is not an offence to video or photograph a police officer as long as it is not a security threat. But if it’s an ongoing operation and you were to publish photos of faces and details of police, it still could be considered an offence if it was deemed to have put the operation at risk. The law prohibits the ‘unauthorised’ use of images or personal details of police when it can endanger officers, facilities ‘or the success of an operation’. The fine could be up to €30,000 (about £35,000).
This differs from the UK, where police have no legal powers to stop you filming police carrying out operations or raids in public places.