If a person is recognizable in the context of a search request and has not consented to the request, such reporting is inadmissible.
The situation is only different if the call for a wanted person was previously initiated by an authority, according to the judges at Frankfurt am Main Regional Court (judgment of 14.12.2017 – 3 O 270/17).
This means that BILD.de’s reporting in connection with the G20 riots and an associated call for wanted persons is inadmissible.
Such an appeal interferes with the general right of personality if the person is recognizable in the photo shown and appears without consent in pictures under the headline “Wanted! Who knows these G20 criminals? Please send any relevant information to the nearest police station […]”in front of a looted branch of a drugstore.
Appeal for a manhunt: BILD.de searches for G20 perpetrators itself
After the G20 riots, BILD.de is also trying to take part in the prosecution.
But unfortunately in a legally inadmissible way.
On its website, it repeatedly calls for a manhunt as part of an article on the G20 summit.
Among other things, it says:
Police officers were attacked with stones, Molotov cocktails and steel bullets by criminals at the Hamburg G20 summit.
Who can identify the criminals?
(…)Who knows the people in these pictures? They are strongly suspected of having committed serious crimes at the G20 summit. …
The weekend theft?
The woman in the pink T-shirt steals water, sweets and chewing gum from the looted drugstore …
The plaintiff shown in two photos in front of a looted branch of a drugstore filed a lawsuit against the publisher following the reporting; with success.
Regional Court Frankfurt a.M.: Image violates general personal rights
In the opinion of the Frankfurt judges, printing the photos violated the plaintiff’s general right to privacy and was therefore inadmissible.
Although there was an extraordinarily high level of media interest in the G20 summit – particularly with regard to the riots – this did not justify the printing of the photos in the specific individual case.
This type of presentation has a considerable and far-reaching pillorying effect.
In the case of the plaintiff with the pink T-shirt, there was only a suspicion that she had committed “minor” crimes such as theft.
Nevertheless, she was denounced as a criminal in BILD.de’s reporting.
The subsequent reporting on sometimes serious crimes could give the reader the impression that the person depicted was also associated with these crimes (including attacking people with stones, Molotov cocktails and steel projectiles).
Weighing of interests in favor of the plaintiff
The balancing of interests carried out by the court was therefore clearly in favor of the plaintiff and the BILD.de search request was unlawful.
It is recognized that the press is required to exercise particular restraint when reporting a possible pillorying effect in the case of identifying reporting, which is also reflected in the fact that strict requirements must be placed on the “whether” and “how” of reporting.