West Midlands Police seem to take privacy very seriously. So when three 20-year-old men were arrested on suspicion of sheep theft, police added pixels to the victims' faces - yes to the lambs - to display in their press release.
According to the statement, the Romanians stuffed the lambs into a car in Yardley, West Midlands, and the police managed to arrest 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.
In one recent example, however, the Huffington Post reported that David Dinsmore, Chief Operating Officer of News UK, had been convicted of publishing information that identified a victim of sexual assault. attacks.
One of the group's newspapers had published the photo of former England footballer Adam Johnson's victim. The court ruled that he did not go far enough in covering her up 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, it doesn't space for mistakes in privacy protection.
