Malaysia Has No Standalone Privacy Tort. You Generally Cannot Stop Someone Photographing You In Public.

There is no Malaysian law prohibiting the public from taking pictures or videos of other individuals.

Lawyer Fatihah Iliani Jamhari put the position directly: obtaining consent for taking pictures or videos in public is unnecessary as there is no legally defined requirement for consent, and as long as the intent is not to promote any form of harassment, a stranger involved in street photography is not violating any law.

Her reasoning: "The Federal Constitution does not provide the right to privacy as a basic freedom of an individual. We do not have a law that enforces the right to privacy."

The practical consequence: when you appear in public, you are seen by other people, and you generally cannot stop anyone photographing or filming you.

Why the PDPA does not help

The Personal Data Protection Act 2010 regulates the processing of personal data in commercial transactions.

Section 4 focuses on business transactions — which is precisely why it does not cover a stranger with a camera on the street.

Where the PDPA does apply, s.8 requires consent from the data subject for personal data to be disclosed, and failure to obtain it exposes a data user to a fine not exceeding RM300,000, imprisonment not exceeding 2 years, or both.

But that is a commercial-transaction framework, not a general right to control your image. Academic commentary has proposed revising s.8 to remove the limitation to commercial transactions as a route to recognising image rights.

The three cases that define the limits

This is where it gets nuanced, and Malaysian courts have not been consistent.

1. Ultra Dimension Sdn Bhd v Kook Wei Kuan (2001) — the restrictive position.

The High Court held that a cause of action only arises if the invasion of privacy falls within an existing and recognised tort. Because privacy rights were not recognised under English common law, they were not recognised under Malaysian law pursuant to s.3 of the Civil Law Act 1956.

So invasion of privacy per se is not a recognised cause of action — subject to an exception where the photographs are highly offensive and show a person in an embarrassing position or pose.

Notably, the photograph in that case was taken at a public place — an open area outside a kindergarten open to the public — and the court held there was no need to obtain the parents' consent.

2. Maslinda Ishak v Mohd Tahir Osman & Ors — the contrary position.

The plaintiff was granted damages for invasion of privacy which left her humiliated, traumatised and suffering mental anguish. The defendant had taken photos of her urinating without her consent.

3. Lee Ewe Poh v Dr Lim Teik Man — the middle ground.

A doctor took two unauthorised photographs of the plaintiff's anus before and after a medical procedure, while she was under anaesthesia, claiming they were for her medical record.

The Court held the failure to obtain prior consent constituted an invasion of privacy. But as the act was not calculated to injure her feelings, she was awarded nominal damages of RM25,000 and costs of RM10,000, and the court ordered the memory card containing the photographs be destroyed.

Chew Soo Ho JC referenced Maslinda Ishak to argue the tort had been indirectly endorsed, suggesting a departure from the traditional English position — while noting Maslinda Ishak did not directly establish it as a standalone tort.

The Court of Appeal has emphasised that the Malaysian legal framework does not provide a standalone cause of action specifically for invasion of privacy.

Where this stands now

Malaysia has not recognised the tort of invasion of privacy, despite privacy being discussed in connection with Article 5 of the Federal Constitution.

In Genting Malaysia Bhd v Pesuruhjaya Perlindungan Data Peribadi & Ors [2022] 11 MLJ 898, the High Court held the PDPA must be construed harmoniously with Article 5(1), since informational privacy is constitutionally protected, and that unjustified access to personal data — even by public officers — without necessity or proportionality would destroy privacy.

But the constitutional recognition remains limited, because the relevant Federal Court statements were made obiter and do not constitute binding judgments.

Practitioner assessment: the difference in judicial positions underscores the uncertainty of Malaysian jurisprudence on privacy, highlighting the need for legislative intervention or a definitive Federal Court ruling. Until then, privacy in private law remains unsettled.

One further point from the cases: photographs published in the public domain will not constitute invasion of privacy.

What you can actually do

If someone is photographing you and you object:

• You generally cannot require them to stop or delete. Do not attack a photographer or demand deletion — you have no right to either.
• You can cover your face or leave.
• Harassment is different. You could take a persistent photographer to court for harassment if they are following you around — but if they are not publishing to raise a scandal or using the images questionably, you have no way to control how they use them.
• If the images are intimate or non-consensual in nature, a completely different regime applies — see (Someone Leaked Your Intimate Images. In June 2026 A Malaysian Court Upheld RM60,000 Against A Man Who Did That.), including TAGS and s.233 CMA.

If you are the photographer:

• Street photography in public is lawful where the intent is not harassment.
• The exception is images that are highly offensive or show someone in an embarrassing position or pose — that is where Ultra Dimension leaves an opening and where Maslinda Ishak succeeded.
• Commercial use engages the PDPA where personal data is processed in a commercial transaction.
• Publishing is where the risk sits, not shooting — defamation, s.233 CMA and harassment all attach to what you do with the image.

The professional view, from independent photographer Muhd Fuad Nizam: there needs to be mutual understanding between photographers and the public, and any photography law must protect the interests of all parties, not just the people being photographed.