I have previously written about members of the emergency services taking photos when responding; see:

Today’s question relates to a bystander taking photos and comes from a student paramedic in Queensland who says that:

… after reading of an incident in the United States, I became curious to what right of privacy a patient may expect in a public place. In the United States, a firefighter confronted a photojournalist after he continued to film a patient being moved from a building to a waiting ambulance despite paramedics requesting he stop.

My question is can bystanders be prevented from filming if a patient or paramedic requests it? And could it be considered some kind of intrusion on the patient or obstruction to the paramedic to continue filming?

It’s hard to draw lessons from the US as they have a Constitutional Bill of Rights which includes the first amendment that ensures freedom of the press and freedom of speech.  I’m no US constitutional lawyer so I won’t try to explain the nuances of that provision but I do understand it makes it much harder to control the right of citizens to take and publish photos.

In Australia there is no first amendment, but equally there is no right to privacy.  As I’ve noted in the earlier posts there is ‘no property in a spectacle’ (Victoria Park Racing & Recreation Grounds Co Ltd v Taylor (1937) 58 CLR 479).  What happens ‘in public’ is public and can be photographed.

Equally filming is not any unlawful intrusion nor is it an obstruction – how would filming actually interfere with a paramedics’s work?  If the photographer was actually getting in the way, it’s the getting in the way not the filming that is a hindrance.

Readers may recall an interesting piece of ‘citizen journalism’ following the 2013 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney when a police officer was filmed allegedly assaulting a mardi-gras participant and the video went ‘viral’ on social media (you can see the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxtFtVfAeeE).  You will also see at that video police asking people to stop filming and those people refusing to do so on the basis that there is no law against filming.  I make no comment on the incident but do note that following the event:

Deputy Commissioner of the New South Wales Police Service Mark Murdoch told the media today at a press conference that the behaviour of police who asked citizens to stop filming that they demonstrated naivety in their comments.

“We support the right of the community to film anyone in a public space and we do so ourselves. Our police need to be mature enough to know that everyone has a mobile phone with a camera facility and they will use that. We thought at the senior level it had been communicated loud and clear but we have more work to be done there,” he said.

(See Luke Hopwell, ‘NSW Police Slam ‘Trial By Social Media’ As Mardi Gras Brutality Video Goes Viral [Updated]’ Gizmodo (Online), 6 March 2013; Bellinda Kontominas, ‘Police ‘naive’ to tell public not to film arrest’ Sydney Morning Herald (Online) 6 March 2013).

The Police Media Policy (2013) says (at p 32):

Camera footage taken from a public place, or a privately owned place with the consent of the owner/occupier, does not contravene the Surveillance Devices Act 2007. The footage can be taken in these circumstances even if the crime scene or activity itself is not in a public place.

The same is true for paramedics.  In today’s world, everyone has a camera phone.  The work of the emergency services will always attract interest and people are encouraged to take footage to send to TV stations or even to the emergency services themselves.  It follows that everyone who turns out in an ambulance, fire appliance, rescue truck or police vehicle has to assume that everything they are doing can, and will be, filmed.

Even if filming was unlawful, it’s not a paramedic’s job to enforce the law.  To quote again from the Police Media Policy (2013; p 32):

It is NOT the job of police officers at crime scenes to decide on whether legally obtained media footage or photographs are insensitive or in poor taste. What the media may publish is governed by various broadcasting laws and codes of conduct.

If it’s not a police officer’s job it’s certainly not a paramedic’s job (see also Lifesavers as law enforcers? (July 6, 2014)).   In my paper ‘Media Access to Emergencies – Command, Control or Co-ordination?’ (2010) 25(1) Australian Journal of Emergency Management 13-17, I said (at p 15):

The emergency services are not, generally, charged with preserving all the rights of people affected by an emergency. People may well have privacy rights that could be infringed by an intrusive media presence and may have legal claims to compensation (Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 (NSW); Privacy Act 1988 (Cth); Giller v Procopets [2008]) but that does not mean the emergency service charged with responding to the fire, flood or storm is also required, authorised or competent to protect those rights.

There are rules with which media agencies must comply when dealing with the broadcasting of information that is unfair, infringes privacy (ACMA 2004, 32; ABC 2007, 4, Australian Press Council 2006, [3]; Commercial Radio 2004, [2]; MEAA, [8] and [9]) or may prejudice a criminal prosecution (Breit 2007, 160) but the fire and emergency services do not have a specific authority, capacity or duty to monitor and enforce these rules.

Whilst that was directed at the ‘fire and emergency services’ it is equally applicable to paramedics.  The conclusion was:

If there are restrictions on media access and publication they are imposed by the law governing the media, rather than emergency [and ambulance] services, and it is up to the media enforcement agencies, such as the Australian Communications and Media Authority, and in cases where criminal prosecutions are involved, the police, to enforce.

Conclusion

No, bystanders cannot be prevented from filming if a patient or paramedic requests it provided they are filming in or from a public space or on private land with the consent of the occupier.