1 Feb 2010, 09:00

A man ('the victim') worked at the front counter of a finance company which was robbed at gunpoint. The finance company provided CCTV footage of the robbery to the Police. The Police took a series of still photographs from the footage and disclosed these to the media to assist in apprehending the offender. However, the victim was clearly visible in one of the photographs. This photograph was published by a number of news agencies, both in print and on the internet.

Principle 11 of the Privacy Act

Principle 11 provides that an agency shall not disclose personal information unless it has reasonable grounds to believe that an exception applies to allow that disclosure.

The Police disclose images of robberies and other crimes to the media in order to identify and apprehend offenders. This is a commonly used method and appears to deliver good results. Principle 11(e)(i) allows the Police to disclose information if they believe on reasonable grounds that it is necessary to avoid prejudice to the investigation, prosecution and punishment of offences.

In this case, the Police disclosed three photographs of the robbery. Two showed the offender from the front and back and the third showed the offender's vehicle. However, one of the photographs also clearly showed the victim's face as the offender interacted with him.

While we were satisfied that the Police had good reason to disclose images of the offender to the media, we were not satisfied that it was necessary for the Police to disclose an image of the victim for the same purpose. The Police should have obscured the image of the victim before disclosing the photograph to the media.

We formed the view that the Police had breached principle 11 by disclosing the image of the man. We also formed the view that this disclosure caused the man harm. Following the publication of the image, the man believed that his safety was compromised and was significantly distressed as a result. This can be a common consequence of disclosing images of victims of violent crime.

The Police's internal guidance on the release of visual material to the media did not specifically address the issue of images of witnesses or victims but did require staff to seek consent from witnesses or victims before disclosing personal information about them. This guidance had not been followed in this case.

In light of this we suggested that the Police could make their internal guidelines clearer. The Police accepted our suggestion and agreed to amend the guidelines to ensure that photographs containing images of individuals other than an offender would not be published in a way that would identify those other individuals.

The victim and the Police settled the complaint on mutually agreeable terms. We then closed our file.

June 2010

Disclosure of personal information - Police - disclosure of victim's image to media - principle 11(e)(i) did not apply - image should have been removed prior to disclosure - harm suffered - Privacy Act 1993, principle 11, section 66(1)(b)