Peck v United Kingdom · Application no. 44647/98
European Court of Human Rights · 28 January 2003
A council camera filmed Geoffrey Peck in a public street during a personal crisis. Its operator alerted the police, who intervened. The council later supplied footage to publicise its CCTV system. People who knew Mr Peck recognised him when images reached a much wider audience.
The change of audience
The question in Strasbourg concerned what the council did with the recording. Someone walking past could have seen Mr Peck. Broadcasting identifiable footage allowed many more people to see the event, in a different context, long after it had ended. The European Court of Human Rights found a breach of Article 8. It also found that the domestic remedies available to him at the time did not meet Article 13.
The aim of explaining a public service mattered. So did the council’s choices about obtaining consent, adequately masking the person or controlling onward disclosure. It was the combination of identifiability, reach and a moment of vulnerability that made the disclosure so intrusive.
Tracing a disclosure
If an image of you has circulated, make a private record of where it appeared, the date, the original source if known and what made you recognisable. Save the publisher’s response to any request for removal or masking. Forwarding the footage publicly to show what went wrong can give it a larger audience. The judgment addressed a public authority’s disclosure on its particular facts. A present-day complaint about a private publisher may require a different legal route.
Read the judgment in Peck v United Kingdom
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