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Nine News Adelaide breaches Privacy rule

Nine News Adelaide has been found to have breached Code of Practice by identifying a family involved in a home birth.

The media watchdog has ruled that Nine News Adelaide (NWS9)breached the Code of Practice by identifying a family involved in a home birth.

The story in February concerned a deregistered midwife continuing to practice.

But the WIN TV-produced bulletin broadcast sensitive personal information about a newborn baby and also contained identifying and intrusive footage of the complainant and his family inside their home and surrounds.

Nine’s story included the midwife walking into a house, then filmed through a window and leaving. It also included the father of the family concerned.

But while Nine pixellated the faces of children it didn’t pixellate the midwife or the father, and its footage included identifiable vision of the family’s house and garage as well as the reporter naming the suburb.

In his complaint to the Australian and Communications Media Authority the father says he did not consent for footage of himself or his family but was told Nine would run the story “regardless of my complaints.”

This becomes the first television broadcast to breach strict privacy provisions since they were introduced in December 2011.

Nine also failed to exercise special care before using sensitive personal information about a child.

“The concept of being protected against someone intruding on your private space is a key tenet of the privacy guidelines,” said ACMA Chairman, Chris Chapman.

“It is partly based on a person’s reasonable expectation that their activities would not be observed or overheard. In this case, footage in and around the complainant’s home was found to be an invasion of privacy.”

NWS9 has agreed to a training program for staff and to make a statement on its website providing a link to the ACMA’s investigation.

2 Responses

  1. Good to see that the staff are going to get more training – they can’t get enough. Apparently.

    Perhaps we could reduce the overcrowding in some of our gaols by providing criminals with training instead of punishment.

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