When someone is arrested, it’s not uncommon for local media reports to say something like “Bob Smith, of the 1900 block of Main St. was charged with…” but you don’t usually get that person’s full home address and Social Security number. Yet that’s what happened when a TV station in South Carolina posted the full, unedited police interview with a McDonald’s employee who’d been arrested for leaving her 9-year-old daughter at a park while she worked.
Earlier this week, the website for WJBF-TV in North Augusta, SC, posted 13 minutes of police interview footage with the woman. The station had obtained the video through a Freedom of Information Act request, but didn’t edit out the portion of the video where she tells police her personal information, including spelling out her name, giving her full address and Social Security number.
The unedited video was on the site for at least an hour, reports the Washington Post, while people pointed out in comments on the story and on the station’s Facebook page that the video included information that should not be there.
The station soon replaced the full clip with one that is slightly shorter and doesn’t include the woman’s personal data, but in her eyes the damage was done.
Her lawyer says she is filing a lawsuit against the station and the reporter for revealing the irrelevant but highly sensitive information in the police interview tape.
South Carolina mom who left daughter at park sues TV station [Washington Post]
by Chris Morran via Consumerist
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