West Midlands Police seem to take privacy very seriously. So when three 20-year-old men were arrested on suspicion of her theftof sheep, the Police added pixels to the faces of the victims – yes the lambs – to display in their press release.
According to the statement, the Romanians took the lambs in a car in the Yardley of the West Midlands, and the police managed to capture them.
BBC News commented:
"Sources say that the officer blurred the image as a joke. He apparently concluded that he had an obligation under the Convention on the Rights of the Sheep in Europe to hide the faces of lambs. "
And a more serious note
The West Midlands police have acted entirely with guidelines that explicitly state that they should not provide information about victims of a criminal act. Under the law that includes the Data Protection Act and Article 8 of the Human Rights Law, the police must protect any personal information unless there is a very serious reason.
But it is not just the police, which has to protect personal information. Journalists, for example, are subject to the same law.
Again the police movement was exaggerated.
Σε ένα πρόσφατο παράδειγμα όμως, η Huffington Post ανέφερε ότι ο David Dinsmore, Chief Operating Officer της News UK, είχε καταδικαστεί για δημοσίευση πληροφοριών που προσδιόριζαν το θύμα σεξουαλικής attacks.
One of the group's newspapers had published the photo του θύματος του πρώην ποδοσφαιριστή της Αγγλίας Adam Johnson. Το δικαστήριο αποφάνθηκε ότι δεν προχώρησε αρκετά στην συγκάλυψη της identity of the victim.
From the error of a newspaper that does not cover the identity of the victim much can happen. Somewhere here we have to mention the dangers of social media, where the audience tries to guess the victim by collecting data.
In today's online world where information lives forever, there is no room for privacy errors.