I understand why Airbnb's trust and safety department will suspend an account if a host takes a photograph without a guest's permission.
That said, a colleague of mine who is also a host has just had her account suspended and it doesn't seem right to me. The guests brought many more guests than were stated in the reservation. They brought three large dogs (think St. Bernards) to a non-pet home. They smoked a ton of weed in a non-smoking property. They left drugs on a mirror. They left a door 6 inches ajar in -22F windchill weather.
Because there was a significant snow storm that weekend (two feet of snow) and they had many more vehicles in the driveway than expected, her property manager got stuck while trying to plow them out. They invited him inside while he waited for a tow truck, which took several hours because there were so many vehicles off the road in the storm. He was concerned about the dogs and took a photo of the three dogs and sent it to her. He reports that the guests were fine with it at the time.
The guests called her and harassed her demanding money back and threatening a bad review because they had trouble with the driveway. She said no because the guests were able to get in and out to ski and the ones who remained there told the property manager they had no intention of skiing that day and were clearly intoxicated. She uploaded photographs of the open door, the drugs, the cars in the driveway and the dogs to the conversation with the guests and asked for an addtional cleaning fee. The guests have reviewed her. She needs to review them today. In the meantime, Airbnb's trust and safety department suspended her account because they say her property manager did not have permission to take a photograph of the dogs.
The suspension is supposed to be temporary and was supposed to be lifted when she agreed to their terms, but she has done that and it hasn't been reinstated.
How else was she supposed to prove they violated her no pet policy? If I had come upon this, my first instinct would have been to take out my camera.