Complaint
This series of observational documentaries followed events in Birmingham’s maternity units. A member of staff at one of the units complained that they had been filmed and shown in one of the programmes despite making clear that they consented to neither. The ECU considered the complaint in relation to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines on Privacy. In order to safeguard the complainant’s privacy, their gender and the transmission date of the programme are not given in this published version of the ECU’s finding.
Outcome
The Editorial Guidelines make clear that people in sensitive places such as hospitals have a reasonable expectation of privacy and that consent should be sought before filming them and including them in programmes. In this instance, the independent production company involved maintained in response to the complaint that they had no record of the complainant having withheld consent. In the course of the ECU’s investigation they discovered that such a record had been made but, as a result of human error, it had not been included in the master-list of consents. The shot of the complainant in the programme would not have rendered them identifiable to viewers in general, and there was nothing inherently private in the activity they were engaged in. Nevertheless, the filming and broadcasting of the complainant without their consent constituted an unwarranted infringement of their privacy.
Upheld
Further action
The finding was reported to the board of BBC Content and discussed with the independent production company. The programme was removed from BBC iPlayer and the shot in question will be removed before it is re-shown. BBC Content is undertaking further investigation into the circumstances which allowed the error to occur.