OTTAWA – A person’s brief appearance in a news report did not breach their privacy, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) has ruled.
The CBSC investigated a news report broadcast on CTV Toronto (CFTO-DT) on December 16, 2015 during CTV News at Six. The report was about Syrian refugees’ difficulties finding housing in Toronto, and included an investigation in to claims that some property managers were asking for a year’s worth of rent payments and employment records, which the refugees did not have. A CTV reporter and cameraperson visited the offices of a property management company and a few employees appeared momentarily on screen. One of them complained to the CBSC that she had not been informed that she was being filmed and objected to the use of her image without her consent.
In its response to the complaint, CTV pointed out that the reporter had clearly identified himself and that the camera was visible. The station also noted that the woman was not identified in the segment and only appeared for seven seconds, three of which had her obscured by the reporter standing in front of her. The complainant argued that the amount of time she was shown on screen did not lessen the broadcast’s impact on her.
The CBSC’s English-Language Panel examined the complaint under Article 4 of the 2011 version of the RTDNA Code of Ethics which states that newsgathering shall not infringe privacy unless it is in the public interest and clandestine newsgathering should only be used when necessary.
The Panel determined that the story was in the public interest, and that no clandestine techniques had been used because the camera was clearly visible and there is no obligation to announce specifically that the camera is recording. In addition, it concluded that the broadcast did not infringe the employee’s privacy because she was not named or otherwise identified, her voice was not audible, and the footage was taken in a location accessible to the public. The station was not required to obtain her consent to film her or air the footage in such circumstances, continued the decision.
