Two People and the Sunday World

Complaint

A couple complained that material published by the Sunday World had infringed their privacy and was therefore a breach of Principle 5 (Privacy) of the Code of Practice for Newspapers and Periodicals.

The newspaper responded that it was important and necessary to publish the material in order to give details of an active line of enquiry by Gardaí into a particular crime, that the names of the complainants and of others had been changed, and that the material had been based on conversations with many members of the Gardaí.

Decision

Although the material in question included some statements that were indistinguishable from statements made by the complainants to Gardaí, consideration of whether the publication had unauthorised access to confidential Garda material is outside the remit of the Press Ombudsman.

The complainants, however, maintained that although their names and the names of others involved had been changed, some additional details published were sufficient to allow other persons involved to become aware of their identity, and of what they had told the Gardaí, in a way that would imperil their safety as well as breaching their privacy. As evidence that this had happened, they said that they had, immediately following publication of the material and since then, been receiving silent phone calls which they interpreted as threatening.

The evidence offered by the complainants to support their contention, although indicative that a breach of their privacy may have taken place, is essentially circumstantial. In the circumstances it is, in the opinion of the Press Ombudsman, insufficient to support a finding that their privacy had been breached in the context of Principle 5 of the Code of Practice.

While the complaint, for this reason, is not being upheld, the Press Ombudsman would like to draw editors’ attention generally to the possibility that publishing confidential information may in certain circumstances inadvertently compromise individuals’ rights to privacy under Principle 5 of the Code of Practice, and to recommend that they take all reasonable steps, not confined to changing names, to ensure that this does not occur.

27 January 2010