Gotcha calls are the lifeblood of some radio formats, but pranksters beware, ACMA has just released new privacy guidelines which could cramp your style. In the guidelines, released for comment today by the regulator, case studies give examples of where you could fall foul of the rules. ACMA suggests that pranksters should specifically tell those who have been pranked when the segment will air and ask their permission to put it to air. Under the new guidelines, no longer will it be good enough to record the prank and reveal what is going on at the end with the recorder still running. 

Research for the guidelines identified community perceptions of privacy for broadcasters in three key areas:

>   whether individual consent is obtained prior to the broadcast of personal material and information

>   the importance of safeguarding personal privacy in broadcasts

>   how intrusive certain broadcasting scenarios are of a person’s privacy, including the broadcast of personal material from online social media sites.

A specific example of a radio prank which breached ACMA’s guidelines is explained in the research associated with the guidelines, with listener attitudes also explored.

Prank call where a male listener phones his ex-girlfriend who is living with him to convince her that she must move out. If he is successful with the prank, both he and his ex-girlfriend win $500 each. The conversation is recorded without his ex-girlfriend’s knowledge and is broadcast at a later time. During the course of the call details of their relationship and living arrangements are revealed. The first names of the ex-girlfriend and a mutual friend are also revealed

This case was judged in breach of the guidelines because it identified an individual, and sensitive personal information broadcast without knowledge or consent. The fact that the female participant was told of the joke at the end and laughed, did not satisfy ACMA that privacy was properly handled.

A male participant called his housemate (who was also his ex-girlfriend) and asked her to leave the house because she was untidy and he was ‘sick of her climbing into his bed’. The woman and her family members were identified by their first names. Information about her prior sexual activity was also revealed.

Towards the end of the call, the woman agreed to leave. The radio presenters interrupted, revealing it was part of a radio competition. The woman was surprised and laughed. She believed the call had already been broadcast.

The ACMA’s findings

ACMA found the broadcast breached the commercial radio code because the woman was identified by the words used in the broadcast and the broadcaster did not obtain her consent to the recording, or the broadcast, of her conversation.

The conversation was one that the woman would have reasonably considered a private matter since it was a discussion about her current living arrangements and included references to her sexual activity and relationships. She would not have been aware of the recording or broadcast of her words until after the radio presenters interrupted her telephone conversation.

The broadcaster did not inform the woman that the conversation would be broadcast the next day. The broadcaster did not obtain her express consent to the broadcast, nor give her any opportunity to give or withhold her consent to the broadcast.

Although the woman expressed amusement when the radio presenters revealed her conversation was part of a prank-call radio competition, this response did not establish her consent to the broadcast.

The codes also have extensive guidelines on privacy in news and current affairs reports on both radio and tv.

The Privacy Guidelines for Broadcasters 2005 were made by the ACMA in August 2005 to assist broadcasters to better understand their obligations relating to privacy as set out in the various broadcasting industry codes of practice.  This is the first review of the guidelines since they began.

Broadcasting codes of practice are registered by, or in the case of national broadcasters notified to, the ACMA. They include obligations for broadcasters with respect to privacy.

In the period May to September 2010, the ACMA commissioned qualitative and quantitative research into community attitudes to broadcasting and media privacy. The findings provide an important community perspective on privacy issues that arise in broadcast news and current affairs programs and radio competitions.

The research reports Community research into broadcasting and media privacy (2011) and Australians’ views on privacy in broadcast news and current affairs (2011) have been published on the ACMA website.  

The revised guidelines are now available for public comment (PDF, 230 kb) and an online from at http://engage.acma.gov.au/privacyguidelinesreview can be used to comment.