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24 November 2009
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Editorial Guidelines in Full

Privacy

• Introduction
• Privacy editorial principles
• Public interest
• Public & semi-public places
• Behaviour
• Consent
• Privacy mandatory referrals to Controller Editorial Policy
• Secret recording
• Secret recording for news & factual programmes
• Secret recording for comedy & entertainment programmes
• Secret recordings from outside sources
• Electronic note taking
• Door-stepping
• Daily news gathering
• Media scrums
• Research
• Door-stepping for factual programmes with prior approach
• Door-stepping for factual programmes without prior approach
• Door-stepping for comedy & entertainment programmes
• Recording telephones calls for news & factual programmes
• Recording on private property
• Tag along raids
• Reporting suffering & distress
• Funerals
• Revisiting past events
• Use of library material of scenes of suffering, distress and trauma
• Missing people
• CCTV, webcams & other material from outside sources
• Personal information

Introduction

The BBC must not infringe privacy without good reason wherever in the world it is operating. It is essential in order to exercise our rights of freedom of expression and information that we work within a framework which respects an individual's privacy and treats them fairly, while investigating and establishing matters which it is in the public interest to reveal. Private behaviour, correspondence and conversation should not be brought into the public domain unless there is a clear public interest. There are also a number of ways in which the law protects privacy in the United Kingdom, including the Human Rights Act 1998.

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