Press Complaints Commission Upholds Intrusion Complaint Involving Publication of Footage On Newspaper Website

The Press Complaints Commission has upheld a complaint by a woman who says that a newspaper’s website publication of video documenting a police raid on her home invaded her privacy because it might lead third parties to identify her address. The PCC said publication of the footage was “highly intrusive.” Before last year, the PCC did not have authority to make such adjudications concerning Internet publications of video. In January, 2007, newspapers and magazines agreed to allow the agency to exercise such authority, and it began making such decisions last summer.

In the newest case, the Commission held that “Showing a video and publishing a picture of the interior of the complainant’s house, without her consent, was clearly highly intrusive, particularly when the coverage contained information likely to identify her address. The fact that the police had invited the newspaper on the raid explained how the footage had been obtained, but it did not absolve the editor of responsibility for ensuring that the subsequent publication of the material complied with the Code.

“The relevant consideration was whether there was a sufficient public interest in the story to justify the degree of intrusion. There were two strands to the public interest defence. The first was that the footage showed an important part of local policing in operation. The second was that it allegedly exposed a specific criminal offence.

“The Commission considered that, while it may have been in the public interest to illustrate the police campaign against drugs, insufficient regard had been paid to the complainant’s right to privacy in this case. Showing the video of the complainant’s home involved a degree of intrusion that was out of proportion to any such public interest.