Legal Issues

Privacy is the ability not to be seen, observed or disturbed by other people. It lets someone keep parts of their life out of the public eye, free from unwanted attention and interference, such as time with family, what happens at home and private messages.

The law recognises a right to respect for a person's private and family life, their home and their messages (including letters, emails and calls). This does not mean a person can never be photographed or filmed. The right is not absolute: if you are in a public place, you may be seen or recorded by others. A media producer therefore has to balance the freedom to record with the privacy rights of the people who might appear in their images.

Invasion of privacy

Invasion of privacy happens when media producers intrude on a person's private life or private space without justification. The key word is justification: recording something that is genuinely in the public interest may be defensible, while intruding simply to get a more dramatic shot is not.

Homes and gardens are private spaces. Filming into private property without permission can invade privacy, even if the camera is held in a public place. For example, a drone flying over a garden fence to film a family's party intrudes on space where people reasonably expect to be left alone.

What producers must consider

Before recording, a media producer should ask whether the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy in that situation. A crowd at an outdoor event may be recorded as part of the scene, but a person relaxing in their own garden is in a private space. The producer must decide whether the recording respects the person's privacy, and whether any intrusion can be justified.

Harassment means repeated, unwanted communication or contact with someone that is likely to cause distress or fear. A single sharp word or one accidental photo of someone in the background is not harassment; the important words are repeated and unwanted. In media production the unwanted attention often comes through a camera rather than directly from a person.

When a camera becomes harassment

Persistent, aggressive or intimidating photography or filming can amount to harassment, even in a public place. Standing on a public pavement gives you the right to be there, but it does not give you the right to pursue someone with a lens. Imagine you are filming at a beach and one swimmer says "stop filming me" and walks away. Following them along the promenade and keeping the camera on them for several minutes is repeated unwanted attention. So is holding a reflector board across someone's path so they cannot step away while you keep filming.

Purpose and circumstances

Whether behaviour counts as harassment depends on the purpose and the circumstances, and a court decides each case. Filming a stranger twice for two seconds in a busy crowd is very different from following them for an hour, and filming a burst water main to warn people away may justify more intrusion than filming a stranger's startled reaction to a prank. Because every case is judged on its own facts, there is no simple list of shots that are always allowed.

As a media producer you should avoid persistent or intimidating behaviour when photographing or filming people. Plan your recording so that people are treated respectfully: shoot from a fixed position instead of chasing people, stop when someone clearly asks you to, and never block a person's path. Being in public does not mean a person should have to put up with repeated unwanted attention from a camera or a crew.

Before you record any images, work out two things: whether the space is public or private, and who owns it. Getting this wrong can mean trespassing or being made to stop.

Public and private spaces

A public place is somewhere anyone is allowed to go, such as a village green or a public footpath. Somewhere that feels public may still be privately owned — a railway station concourse belongs to the company that runs the station, which can ban filming without a permit.

Private property is land or buildings owned by someone, such as a farm, a back garden or a workshop. You always need the owner's permission to film there; without it you are trespassing. A private place that the public are allowed into, like a hotel lobby, still runs on the owner's rules. If staff ask you to leave and you refuse, you are trespassing too.

Personal, editorial and commercial use

The purpose changes what is allowed.

Commercial use is the strictest because the images are selling something. Even in an open public space, a crew with lights, tripods and a lot of equipment can need permission, and may have to close or cordon off part of the area — the landowner or council decides. Being allowed to record somewhere is not automatically the same as being allowed to publish.

Release forms are written agreements that allow a media producer to film, photograph and publish images of people or property. Getting permissions in place before a shoot avoids problems later: if someone refuses or withdraws their agreement after the work is finished, the footage or photographs may be unusable.

A property release form is signed by the owner of a property. It allows images or video of their land or buildings to be used. A model release form records a person's agreement to be filmed or photographed and for the resulting images to be used. It is needed for each person who can be recognised, including extras and people visible in the background, not only the main actor.

Other permissions cover where and how you record:

• Location permission comes from the landowner or council and lets the crew and actors use the land.
• Buildings permission applies when a key or famous building, such as a clock tower, is visible in the background.
• Highways permission is needed when the crew will block or make use of a road, path or pavement, such as setting up a tripod on the pavement.

For example, filming a scene in a village hall needs location permission from whoever runs the hall, and a model release form from every actor and extra who can be recognised.

Consent should cover the intended use. A photo for a personal album is different from publishing an image or using it commercially, which usually needs explicit consent. Where consent is required, anyone who does not agree should be left out of the image or made unidentifiable, for example by cropping the shot or choosing an angle where they cannot be recognised.

Some people may not be able to give informed consent, for example a child or an adult with a learning disability. Extra care is needed, and consent may need to come from a parent, guardian or carer.

Before publishing images for commercial purposes, media producers must have the appropriate permissions for people, property and locations.

Defamation is when a false statement is made about a person or an organisation and it harms their reputation. It is against the law, so a media producer who publishes untrue content about someone can be taken to court. A statement only counts as defamation if it is false as well as damaging. Saying something unkind but true, or something negative that is clearly an opinion, is not defamation.

Defamation comes in two forms, depending on how the statement is made.

Libel is written or published defamation, so it is in a permanent form that can be seen again and again. Libel also covers material sent or posted online, such as a monthly email newsletter or the text on a web page. Libel is the bigger worry for media companies, because whatever they release stays in a form that people can save, screenshot or read again later.

Defamation can apply to businesses as well as to individuals. For example, an advert in a free local newspaper that wrongly claims a family-run bakery uses out-of-date ingredients could harm the bakery's reputation and lose it customers, so the bakery could take action.

To avoid defamation, media producers must check that what they publish is accurate and not false. This means verifying facts with a reliable source, keeping evidence such as recordings or emails, and taking care with wording so a true fact is not twisted into an untrue claim. If a producer is unsure whether something is true, it is safer to leave it out.

A data subject is the individual whose details an organisation holds. Personal data is information about a living individual who can be identified from it, such as a name, email address or photograph. Media producers collect, use and store personal data, so they must follow data protection principles. These do not stop data being collected; they set rules for doing it properly.

For example, an online youth magazine runs a photo competition and collects each entrant's name, email address and age to judge entries and send prizes. The entrant is the data subject and those details are personal data.

The principles

What media producers must do

• Explain why they are collecting personal data.
• Process it fairly and lawfully, and only for the reason it was collected.
• Hold it securely to prevent hacking or accidental leaks.
• Not share it with another organisation without consent, or unless required by law.

The magazine should tell entrants that ages are only used to check prize eligibility, keep entries on a secure system, delete them after the competition, and name a member of staff responsible for looking after the data.

A data subject is a person whose personal data an organisation holds. Media producers collect personal data all the time, such as the names, ages and contact details of people appearing in a production, and data protection law gives those people rights over it.

The right to view data

Every data subject has the right to view the data held about them. This means a person can ask an organisation what personal data it holds about them and see that information. To make this possible, a media producer must keep personal data organised and somewhere it can be found quickly, and must deal properly with a request rather than ignoring it.

The right to have data corrected

Data subjects also have the right to have incorrect data about them corrected or updated. If a record says something wrong or out of date, the person can ask for it to be changed. The producer should check the request and update the data where it really is wrong.

These rights exist to protect individuals from misuse of their information and from the harm that inaccurate records can cause. A producer that refuses a correction can leave someone stuck with wrong records that follow them around.

For example, a local radio station runs a schools quiz and keeps each entrant's details in an online form: their name, school year and contact email. One entrant is down as Year 7 when she is actually in Year 9, so she is placed in the wrong prize category and sent questions meant for younger pupils. She asks to see the entry stored about her, spots the error and asks for it to be updated. The station checks her original form and corrects the record. Without that right, the wrong year group could have stayed on file and affected later competitions.

Legal considerations exist to protect individuals from three different kinds of harm: privacy rules guard against intrusion, defamation law guards against false statements, and data protection guards against the misuse of personal information. Ignoring them harms the person involved and creates consequences for the media producer.

Impact on individuals

Publishing inaccurate personal information can damage someone's reputation and cause genuine distress. Anyone can be affected, not just famous people. If a community radio station wrongly names a volunteer as the person who took money from a charity stall, that volunteer is harmed in front of friends, family and future employers, and the story may follow them online for years. Personal data handled carelessly causes a different harm: a young performer whose date of birth and school name are published in a behind-the-scenes blog loses control of details that were only collected to check they were old enough to take part.

Impact on media producers

If inaccurate personal information you publish is a false statement that damages someone's reputation, it is defamation. In written or published form it is libel, and the person can take the producer to court and claim compensation. A data protection breach — for example, reusing an old sign-up list to send marketing emails about a new release to people who only agreed to be contacted about audition dates — can lead to fines and legal action. Producers also risk reputational damage: audiences, contributors and clients stop trusting an organisation known for publishing inaccurate information about people or losing their details.