Influencer 'traumatized' as she claims she's been deported from Japan for taking pictures of strangers in public

An influencer has said they've been through a 'traumatizing experience' after getting deported from Japan.

Whenever you go on vacation, you're almost certainly going to take pictures to capture the memories forever, or at least stick them on Instagram.

However, it's always handy to know the rules surrounding taking photos in any particular country to avoid falling foul of them.

One influencer who claims she was recently deported from Japan has been complaining about their 'extremely restrictive' laws around smoking and taking photos in public and now, people reckon they know why.

Posting to Twitter - or X or whatever Elon Musk is calling it these days - Marie said she was 'trying to process everything that has gone on' after claiming she was deported back across the Pacific.

Twitter

People reckon they know exactly what it was for as well, as someone else on social media picked out a picture she'd posted on 10 August of two people on a train in Tokyo and said 'she got deported from Japan for this'.

While photography is legal in most public places in Japan and you're not going to end up with a criminal record for it, taking photos can become a civil offense if someone in the picture finds it published somewhere.

They could claim a breach of privacy if they end up in somebody's picture and that picture ends up somewhere, which according to professional photographer Tia Haygood is why in a lot of Japanese content faces in the crowds are blurred out to avoid identification.

Tia said a lot of people visiting Japan just didn't know the rules and risked falling foul of them and that it'd be better to just play it safe.

Twitter

A bit of common sense often goes a long way as Tia said that in very public places people will likely be fine with you taking pictures, but snapping shots of people on the train as the influencer did is less simple.

Asking for permission would help greatly as it appears as though someone has fallen foul of the rules on this occasion.

However, some reckon she made it up 'to farm engagement', calling the initial tweet 'engagement bait' and Marie even replied to the tweeter calling her out asking for people to follow her.

One person said they were 'sure she left voluntarily' while another claimed 'she's always making stuff up in an attempt to go viral'.

Whatever the weather it's usually best to play it safe on the subject of taking photos of people on the train without their consent by just not doing it.