What legal action can I take if someone who had access to my personal hard disk copied all my personal pictures into his computer?
<p>A few months ago I had a temporary guest in my residence. During this time he, without my permission, went through my personal hard disk and copied all of my pictures onto his personal computer. (These are pictures of me, such as ones you take on holidays, and a few more private ones.)</p>

<p>None of these pictures were ever posted online, so the only way he got access to the pictures is because he copied them from my computer.</p>

<p>I only found about what he did recently because I received a message with an attachment from him saying, "I've got these photos of you...."</p>

<p>I told him to delete them, and he said he did.</p>

<p>A few days ago I went to his place and went on his laptop with his permission (as by this point I wasn't trusting him) and There I found lots of other pictures, all from my hard disk that I have never ever shared with anyone, including the pictures that he said he deleted.</p>

<p>What can I do to make sure that all these photos get deleted?</p>

<p>What are the laws about these types of situations?</p>

<p>You have the copyright on all your pictures. He had no permission to copy any of them, so he has committed copyright infringement on a massive scale. You can just get a solicitor who will happily take him to court for you. You shouldn't be overdoing it, $750 per infringed work (per picture) as statutory damages should be fine. </p>

<p>If you want it cheaper, the solicitor will write a letter for you that asks him to destroy all the pictures, sign that he has destroyed all the pictures, pay the solicitor's fees, or otherwise be taken to court for copyright infringement (see above). </p>

<p>Now I am not a lawyer, so you go to a lawyer which will correct whatever I got wrong here. </p>

<p>Just forgot: In addition to having the copyright, if he publishes pictures of people (like you and your family), he needs permission of these people. So if anything gets published, that goes on top of the copyright infringement. </p>

united-kingdom privacy theft hacking