Fish obtain Personhood, GDPR shuts down underwater photography

As most of you are probably aware, the European Union has recently put a law into action which has far reaching consequences for the way companies and websites manage their users’ data. The General Data Protection Regulation has opened a massive pandora’s box of unintended legal consequences.

Now a second development has made the consequences of the GDPR even crasser:

The notorious animal rights organization PETA has obtained the right of personhood for all vertebrates, including fish! The 7th district court of New Zealand (South Island) decided this yesterday. Since, due to the lax legal situation and the cold weather (which makes it easier to cool large servers), a large fraction of the world’s internet servers are located on NZ’s south island, this  decision will have world-wide repercussions.

The combination of the GDPR and the New Zealandish legal decision gives not only humans new, unparalleled rights to their data, including their images, but also fishes. This could essentially shut down all under water photography.

These two gobies have already taken steps to sue the author of this blog post for the unauthorized taking of the photograph below. I will report back once the case goes to court!