Well then maybe someone can enlighten us? Or, maybe, they're so nebulous that the effectively don't exist.
Nebulous rules exist and are enforced every day.
One I have personally have to live with because of what I do is to "...avoid the appearance of impropriety."
If I don't, I could lose my job. FWIW, the governor of Texas has a similar clause, as do judges and a bunch of other jobs. I tried to buy lunch for some border guards. They couldn't accept my offer without losing their jobs.
You'll see similar clauses in pro sports contracts, too.
Not quite that simple. There are also rules in place that dictate what the vultures can and cannot do. Why? Because some people in the public eye still do have a (reasonable) expectation of some level of privacy.
True, but the boundaries that cover public figures are so broad and porous that most people wouldn't want to deal with them. There are situations where you or I might be able to prevent our picture being used without permissionand public figures simply would not be able to do so. The injunction hearing would last as long as it took for a judge to swing a gavel and say "dismissed".
It was a Nazi uniform, you do the math.
Let's say you're right - that he can't get away with doing dumb stuff like 99.99% of the population. What makes wearing a costume to a costume party on Halloween dumb? That's the context that nobody has bothered to address.
Please, with the strawmen!
Wearing a costume to a costume party is not offensive, its expected. Wearing a
NAZI costume anywhere but as part of a theatrical or cinematic production is a social landmine waiting to explode. Wearing such a costume as a public figure is holding a sledgehammer over the trigger.
See also Homicidal Squirrel's amusing flow chart.
Oooooor ... he could say f-you to the morons that think he did something terrible because he quite plainly didn't. It's a shame he chose not to.
You do know he got raked over the coals in private, don't you? His family chewed his ass off. He almost lost his admission to Sandhurst over this.
There's a meme out there, "You had one job...", followed by pictures of failures of that job. Had this happened today, Harry's costume gaffe might well be in the gallery.