Press Council censures Queensland Times for publishing image of children without consent

APN’s Australian Regional Media’s The Queensland Times has been censured by the Australian Press Council for publishing an image of an accused person which featured two children, on its mobile platform and across Facebook.

The image ran on July 1, 2015, alongside an article headed ‘Goodna dad accused of drug, weapons and robbery offences’. The newspaper had not obtained consent to run the image of the children, who were not the subject of the article.

While the publication admitted the image had been published due to a technical error, the Press Council still upheld the complaint as it was a “serious breach of the children’s privacy”.

The Queensland Times said: “That an error in the digital publishing process had resulted in the article appearing on a mobile platform with the image of the children”.