PHONES, PHOTOS & PRIVACY IN TANKWA TOWN

Tankwa Town is a huge city with all sorts of people coming together to express themselves creatively. It's special because it's NOT like the default world we live in for the other 51 weeks of the year. There are no rules at AfrikaBurn, only guiding principles and these are all down to interpretation by the individual.

When people 'radically express' themselves at AfrikaBurn they do so without judgement or fear of being different. This can take the form of being naked and painted bright blue or even just doing silly walks and gifting a performance of your bad poetry. It's important that everyone at AfrikaBurn feels safe and able to express themselves without the possibility that someone has filmed them on their phone and then uploaded it to Instagram for likes and LOLS.

Therefore, please don't film or take photos of anyone at AfrikaBurn without their express permission.

AfrikaBurn is very protective of the privacy of it's participants and every year has to submit removal requests for YouTube videos, and even stock photography site where people are trying to sell images and make money off AfrikaBurn participants without their consent. It's up to all of us to avoid this happening and report instances where we think images and videos of participants are being used without permission.

We have fancy wristbands that are available with 'NO PHOTO' written on them, but that does not mean that everyone who doesn't have a wristband wants you to take a picture of them in their sparklepony pants. If you really want to have a picture of someone you don't know yet, you must ask them and get permission. Any verbal permission is just consent to take the image for your own use - it does not give you permission to upload it to the internet or even send it to your friends.

It's a fact that in Tankwa Town, phones kill immediacy.

Please take a photo of your art car, take a photo of your camp mates all together after your setup, or your favourite artwork, but please try and put your phone away for the rest of the burn. You're possibly missing out on the joy of Tankwa Town life when you viewing it through your device. Disconnect from the web, take a holiday from social media and connect authentically with your fellow burners. Trust us, your friends in the default world will think you are much cooler when they DON'T know what happened at AfrikaBurn. Try explaining that you got a lift on a giant snail while a giant four story lampshade went up in flames without photos, it's much more fun.

What if you see someone taking your photo without permission?

You are fully within your rights to ask that person to stop filming you, and to delete the image or video. This is fully within the privacy laws in South Africa. "The right to privacy is recognised as a fundamental human right in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa and is protected in terms of the Constitution and the common law." You don't need to shout or berate them, they may not know about privacy at AfrikaBurn and if you tell them in the right way, then they'll pass the message on too.

We don't like to bark rules at people in Tankwa Town ... "STOP WEARING FEATHERS YOU FUCKTARD" has never worked as MOOP communication in the history of AfrikaBurn. We prefer the more authentic "Hello, I'm Dave ... Can I chat to you about Jesus MOOP and why it's important right now? The same goes for privacy, photography and phones.