You’re in someone’s vlog. What say do you actually have?

When I’m researching a holiday, I look on YouTube for videos of the hotel. I’m trying to see whether it actually looks like the photographs and get a feel for the place before booking. But you often end up on someone’s entire travel vlog, watching everything from their airport check-in to their arrival at reception. Somehow you keep watching, partly because it’s useful, but partly because there’s something so weird about seeing these ordinary interactions filmed in such detail.

Before I’ve even seen the room, I’ve watched a member of airport staff process their luggage and a receptionist look up their reservation. The camera stays on this poor woman as she answers questions and glances awkwardly towards it. I can’t know what she’s thinking, but she looks deeply uncomfortable. It’s a hard watch, yet that discomfort almost makes you keep watching. You start paying more attention to the people being filmed than to the hotel you came to research.

Then comes the excursion, the passengers sitting nearby on the plane and the tour of the hotel pool. Other guests are sunbathing. Children are swimming or walking around in their bathing suits. Everyone has become part of the production, whether they realise it or not.

In 2026, it seems to have become accepted that leaving the house means potentially appearing in someone else’s content. But appearing is only part of it. Someone else can edit your behaviour, attach their interpretation and present that version of you to an audience. Often, you have no idea it has happened.

The person with the camera has the power

Sometimes it’s a little DJI vlogging camera held across a reception desk. Sometimes it’s an iPhone on a tripod. Increasingly, it can be camera glasses, where the person being filmed may not immediately recognise what is happening.

Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta make recording something you can do through your eyewear. I understand the convenience of capturing a view without holding a phone. But I struggle with the idea that everyone around the wearer should simply accommodate the possibility of being recorded.

Recording indicators matter, but they depend on people noticing a light and understanding what it means. Even then, knowing a camera is recording is hardly the same as agreeing to appear in someone’s published video.

By the second week of a holiday, I’ve usually committed quite thoroughly to the breakfast buffet and piña coladas. I’m bloated, in a bikini and giving very little thought to my public image. If someone films me through their camera glasses and broadcasts it to thousands of people without my permission, I would lose my shit.

I can laugh about that scenario, but the imbalance is real. Whatever device they use, the uploader controls the edit. They decide which answers survive, which explanations disappear and what the title encourages viewers to think. You have no equivalent control over how you come across.

That is a deeply unfair position to put someone in, particularly when they are working and expected to remain polite.

Staff are doing their jobs, not agreeing to a performance

I recently watched a check-in video edited to suggest that the creator had secured a free upgrade. The cuts felt strange, and my impression was that they had actually paid for it. I couldn’t establish that from the video because the context needed to understand the transaction wasn’t there. What remained was a series of awkward questions directed at a woman behind the desk who looked uncomfortable.

That uncertainty is the point. The creator could present the exchange as a successful negotiation. The receptionist had no say in whether the finished video accurately represented what she had explained.

Working in reputation, I find this particularly concerning. Remove an explanation and a reasonable answer can look obstructive. Keep someone’s strained response but cut the repeated questions that preceded it, and they can look rude. The footage itself can be real while the impression it creates is misleading.

A receptionist, flight attendant or check-in agent is also operating under constraints the creator does not share. They have procedures to follow and other customers to help. They may feel unable to challenge the filming, especially if they suspect their objection could become the next clip.

Their professional politeness should not be mistaken for agreement. Nor should they have to choose between tolerating a camera and risking a public complaint about their attitude.

By the time an employee or business discovers the upload, viewers may already have decided what happened. The creator has had time to select and package the encounter; the person filmed is left trying to restore the missing context.

You have no idea what someone is going through

I walk my dog in London every day, and there is a particular road where people regularly film street interviews for TikTok and YouTube. Some will literally follow me down the road trying to involve me. I’m walking my dog, usually not looking my finest, and I don’t want to be interviewed. That should be enough.

What gets me is how offended some of them seem when you decline. Having a camera and an audience appears to give them a sense of entitlement to your time, your reaction and your face.

I remember going for a walk on the week my mum died. I wanted some fresh air, and someone was trying to film me. I walked away as quickly as I could because I didn’t want to become upset in front of the camera. Even then, I was conscious that an emotional reaction could make the encounter more useful to the person recording it.

That is a horrible calculation to have to make when you are grieving. You are trying to hold yourself together while also trying not to provide a stranger with something they might decide is worth uploading.

They didn’t know what had happened that week. That is precisely why a refusal should end the interaction. Someone might be bereaved, waiting for medical results, leaving a relationship, just got sacked or simply having an awful afternoon. They shouldn’t have to explain any of that to be left alone.

Whatever a creator might earn from the views is irrelevant to the person whose distress becomes the attraction.

A larger audience should mean greater responsibility

Some of the travel channels I watch are substantial businesses, with videos receiving hundreds of thousands of views and sometimes millions. There is a hugely successful English hotel reviewer, who travels the world reviewing hotels etc whose videos I’ve seen repeatedly include recognisable guests and staff without their faces being blurred. It amazes me that someone publishing to that audience wouldn’t take more care.

There is also an airline reviewer whose concept I enjoy. The videos are technically good and interesting, but the filming of staff and nearby passengers makes me uncomfortable. Someone sitting beside you on a plane has very limited ability to remove themselves from your shot. They booked a seat, and now they have to decide whether to tolerate the camera or risk an awkward conversation for the rest of the flight.

Travelling tells you very little about someone’s circumstances. They could be attending a funeral, receiving treatment or getting away from an unsafe situation. Footage may reveal who they are with, where they are staying or the journey they are making. The creator cannot know whose circumstances make that exposure risky.

The more established a channel becomes, the less convincing “I’m just filming my trip” feels as an excuse. Someone capable of negotiating sponsorships and producing polished videos can consider whether a stranger needs to be identifiable.

A passing background appearance is different from repeatedly filming the passenger beside you or publishing an entire conversation with an employee. Blurring, cropping, changing the angle and leaving footage out are all editorial choices. A bigger audience creates more reason to make them carefully.

Being allowed to film is a very low standard

I remember watching another travel vlogger documenting a business-class flight from the UK to America with his family. I found the whole thing painfully obnoxious. The man whose channel it was seemed so absorbed in presenting his own experience that everyone else in the cabin had become background scenery. He filmed across the business-class area as though booking the seats had also secured permission to include the other passengers.

At one point, he stood up to film his dad, bringing the passenger in the neighbouring pod clearly into shot. The man was fast asleep under his blanket, and his face wasn’t blurred. There was something particularly intrusive about looking down at someone asleep in their own pod (supposedly private, and something people pay a considerable amount of money for). He wasn’t interacting with the creator or participating in the video. He was simply resting, apparently unaware that the footage would be published.

Whether you’re travelling in economy, premium economy, business or first, you deserve the same consideration. Paying more shouldn’t be a prerequisite for being left alone. But the layout of those pods makes the intrusion particularly obvious: someone has settled into a space designed to offer some separation from other passengers, and a camera is being held above it.

He also turned an interaction with a flight attendant into an impromptu interview. Initially, the filming appeared quite discreet, to the point that I wondered whether he was trying to conceal it. Then he started asking questions about the airline and her favourite places to travel, with the camera directed at her. She looked taken aback to me, but continued answering politely.

Why would we assume that someone doing their shift wants to appear in a stranger’s YouTube video? A flight attendant is there to look after passengers, not supply material for someone’s channel. Although I can’t know whether permission had been discussed off-camera, the interaction illustrated how difficult it can be for an employee to decline when being helpful is part of their job.

And the possible consequences extend beyond feeling uncomfortable. Refuse to engage, and you risk being presented as unhelpful. Answer a succession of unexpected questions about your employer, and an imprecise answer could be published for customers, colleagues and managers to scrutinise. Something said casually in conversation can suddenly look like an official statement about the airline.

Creators should consider the professional risk they may be introducing. An employee could find themselves explaining a mistake, an apparent breach of policy or an answer stripped of its context, all because a passenger decided to conduct an interview they hadn’t prepared for or agreed to give.

The creator controls the questions, the edit and the caption. The employee carries the potential consequences at work. A polite smile does not resolve that imbalance, and I’m surprised it isn’t questioned more often.

The same creator uses Meta glasses to film around theme parks. I’ve started thinking of them as “pervy glasses”, which I appreciate is probably not the brand positioning anyone had in mind. But when I see how casually some people record strangers, including children, I find it difficult to share their enthusiasm for the convenience.

What bothers me is the confidence with which they seem to assume everyone else is available to be filmed. An audience does not give you authority over the people around you. If anything, knowing that thousands of viewers may see the footage should make you more considerate about what you include.

The argument so often comes back to “you’re allowed to film in public”, as though that settles every question of judgement and basic courtesy. The legal position depends on the setting and circumstances, but even where filming is permitted, what happened to simply being a decent human being? You can choose not to publish an identifiable child by a pool. You can leave a sleeping passenger out of the edit. You can ask a flight attendant whether she would like to appear before turning a service interaction into an interview.

The creator gets to decide whether a clip is worth publishing. They should also consider who else might pay a price for it.

What rights do you actually have?

In England and Wales, filming in public generally does not require permission. Simply being recognisable in a video does not automatically give you the right to have it deleted, and saying “I don’t consent” does not, by itself, make every recording unlawful.

That does not give someone unrestricted permission to follow, intimidate or publish anything they like. Privacy, data protection and harassment issues depend on the circumstances. A hotel or aircraft is also not interchangeable with a public street: the operator may have its own filming rules. Rules abroad can differ.

If you find yourself in a vlog, save the link, timestamps and screenshots. If you feel comfortable contacting the creator, ask them to remove the relevant section or make you unidentifiable. Blurring your face may not be enough if your voice, name badge or other details still identify you. Keep a record of the request.

YouTube has a privacy complaint process for people who are uniquely identifiable through features such as their image or voice. It considers consent, public interest and newsworthiness, among other factors, so removal is not guaranteed. You can use that process if approaching the uploader feels uncomfortable or has not resolved the issue.

Where UK data protection law applies, you may have grounds to request erasure or raise a concern with the Information Commissioner’s Office. That right is not absolute, and protections for freedom of expression and journalism can affect the outcome. Neither “it’s monetised” nor “it’s my vlog” settles the legal position on its own.

If someone is following, threatening or repeatedly targeting you, seek help from staff, security or the police as appropriate. You do not need to work out the precise legal category before asking for help. For serious exposure or a damaging, misleading portrayal, individual legal advice may be necessary.

The frustrating reality is that having a route to complain is not the same as having control before publication. The person filmed often has to do the work of challenging a decision someone else made.

The PR lesson is about editorial responsibility

Hotels and airlines should care because their reputation becomes attached to these encounters. A hotel can spend a fortune presenting itself as somewhere guests can relax, then appear in a video where strangers are filmed around the pool. Even if it never commissioned the footage, prospective guests may wonder how their own privacy would be treated.

Where a business invites a creator, filming boundaries should form part of the arrangement. Agree where recording can happen, arrange staff participation and establish how other guests will be protected. Employees need to know they will be supported if they raise a concern.

Creators have their own credibility to protect. I notice how a reviewer treats the people serving them. If they seem indifferent to discomfort or edit an interaction in a way that feels misleading, it affects how much confidence I place in the rest of their judgement.

For Ray-Ban, Oakley and Meta, these encounters also shape the reputation of the technology. Familiar brands can make camera glasses appealing, but the people around the wearer will judge them through their own experiences. Feeling watched is unlikely to leave a positive impression.

There are legitimate reasons to document public life and expose wrongdoing. But a routine hotel review rarely needs a recognisable stranger to make its point. Being legally able to publish something should be the beginning of an editorial decision, rather than the entire justification for it.

The person uploading has control over the version of you their audience sees. That power comes with a responsibility to be fair, preserve context and consider whether you needed to be included at all. Your working day, your grief and your holiday should not become material someone feels entitled to use simply because they brought a camera.