A prison inmate made a complaint against the Department of Corrections and a television company. The Department allowed a television broadcaster to film a documentary inside a prison. It had told the inmates that they would not be identifiable in the final version of the film. The inmate alleged that he was identifiable when the documentary went to air.

The broadcaster had agreed that inmates would not be identifiable and that any identifying features would be removed or 'pixelated' before the documentary was shown on air.. The Department was shown a 'rough cut' version of the documentary before it was shown on television and identified some inmates in it. The television company was asked to 'pixelate' their faces but failed to do so before the documentary was shown. It rectified the mistake before the documentary was archived ready for any future screening or use.

The Privacy Act applies to 'agencies' and provides that the news media, in relation to their news activities, are not agencies for the purposes of the information privacy principles. 'News activity' is also defined and includes the preparation of programmes concerning news, observations on news, or current affairs, for the purposes of dissemination to the public.

I accepted that the television company was a news medium and was not subject to the Act while collecting and holding information for the current affairs documentary. It was not subject to the information privacy principles while disseminating the documentary.

I considered that the Department had not collected, used or disclosed information about the inmate in allowing the documentary to be filmed and aired. Although the Department was an agency for the purposes of the Privacy Act, I did not have grounds to commence an investigation because their actions did not appear to come within any of the information privacy principles.

I discontinued my investigation accordingly.

December 1997

Indexing terms: Disclosure of personal information - Department of Corrections - Television broadcaster - Information identifying prison inmate screened on television - Definition of 'agency' - Definition of 'news activity' - Privacy Act 1993, s 2