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ON GUARDING AGAINST THE VIOLATION OF PRIVACY ON INDONESIAN TELEVISION

Oleh : Dedy Kurniadi
DEDY KURNIADI & CO, Lawyers

The publication of celebrity’s private life on infotainment program has taken more various forms. Reaction against the type of publication is also varied. On one hand, some celebrities support it; on the other hand, there are some who are objected to it. This dualism attitude, for example, takes place when PARFI delivered its worriness about the police, while, at the same time, PARSI expressed gratitude due to the news made by the infotainment. (See Kompas, Sept 3, 2003 “Yang Satu Prihatin, Yang Lain Terimakasih”).

However, no matter what, the discourse revealing someone’s private life to public has required more and more attention. Complaints related to what we call the violation of privacy could not be considered as trivial. It is not impossible that one day TV station will face imminent law charge in regard to what we call privacy.


TRACKING THE DEFINITION OF PRIVACY

It is true that privacy as a terminology does not come from Indonesian cultural root. Samuel D Warren and Louis D Brandeis wrote an article entitled “Right to Privacy” in Harvard Law Review in 1890. Like Thomas Cooley in 1888, they described the Right to Privacy as the Right to be Left Alone or simply could be translated as a right of not to interfering private life. The right of privacy can be defined as a right to protect private life aspects so as not to be entered or used by someone else. (Donnald M Gillmor, 1990: 281). Every person whose privacy is being disturbed has a right to start a lawsuit which is known as Privacy Tort.

As a reference to recognize forms of privacy violation, William Prosser’s note explaining 300 research of privacy suit in 1960 could be used. The division made by Prosser based on the general event which is commonly used as a base of privacy lawsuit could be taken as a clue to comprehend privacy related to the media.

- Intrusion is an act to intervene or encroach upon someone’s personal territory without being invited or permitted by the related person. The encroaching act can take place either in private property or outside of it. This related cause had been proposed by Michael Douglas and his wife Catherine Zeta Jones who accused a Paparazzi of taking their wedding ceremony’s pictures without permission. Douglas anger emerged because actually an exclusive right to take and publish the pictures had been given to a certain popular magazine.
- Public disclosure of embarrassing private facts is disseminating someone’s embarrassing information or facts. The dissemination could be conducted through composition or narration about a particular person. For example, the popular case of Prince VS Out Magazine, Prince declared a lawsuit since Out Magazine published a half-naked Prince’s picture in a ball. Out Magazine was saved from the accusation since the court considered that the party was attended by one thousand people so that Prince was considered realized that his behaviour in the party was well-known by people.
- Publicity which places some one false light in the public eye is a publication which creates a false people’s point of view against someone. Clint Eastwood sued The National Enquirer Magazine for it published Eastwood’s picture with Tanya Tucker accompanied by the news of “Clint Eastwood in love triangle with Tanya Tucker”. Eastwood thought that the news and picture could create a false point of view about him.
- Appropriation of name or likeness is the inappropriate usage of someone’s name or likeness due to private benefit. This event is more related to individual profit taking out of a celebrity’s popularity. The name and similarity to celebrities are publicized without permission.



THE POSSIBILITY OF VIOLATION OF PRIVACY IN BROADCASTING PROCESS

Four cases described above are most likely to take place on Indonesian television. Momentum of violation of privacy could be performed during the process of news coverage and broadcasting.

In the process of covering, a news object can feel the suffering due to the reporters’ overreaction that disturbed his or her private territory. The preserving quality of a reporter could make him or her surpasses the freedom of movement and private comfort zone which properly ought not to be disturbed. The right of freedom of movement and to protect private life actually have been recognized by many Indonesian celebrities. Several infotainment scenes depict smart questions from celebrities in regard to their rights to protect their private life. To determine the limit of mentioned privacy, there is no strict law line; as a result, it still depends on the subjectivity of parties involved.

In broadcasting process, the violation of privacy in the form of embarrassing fact, false light are more likely to happen. The act to violate or not to violate privacy really depends on the subjectivity of the news’ object. The subjectivity probably becomes a base for PARFI and PARSI’s different attitudes which are revealed above, in which one party feels worry while the other expresses gratitude to the infotainment news.

LAW REFERENCE AVAILABLE IN INDONESIA

Since it is not coming from our cultural root, the protection of privacy does not get a special attention. Supposing that there is a certain act setting it, then, the act will be set up partially not entirely.

Particular to the broadcasting scope, Broadcasting Act no. 32 issued in 2002 used the Respect to Private Matters term as an attitude that must be built in broadcasting process. This stipulation is explained in article 48 which includes an order to the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) to arrange and apply the Broadcasting Attitude Manual and Broadcasting Standard Program (P3 SPS). As a follow-up, KPI has issued P3 SPS which contains regulation of broadcasting execution manual.

Related to the protection of privacy, the P3 SPS gives a general rule in article 19, the P3 SPS arranges that a broadcasting institution must respect the privacy right (the right of private life and private space) of subject and object of the news. Regarding the broadcasting program, the P3 SPS does not meticulously arranged it except for news related to conflict and negative things in family (article 20), the broadcasting of hidden records (article 21) and presenting those who are stricken by disaster. Related to the reporting process, it is arranged in the P3 SPS which is mainly concerned with hidden records (article 21), door-stopping (article 22) and coverage for those who are stricken by disaster (article 23).

The P3 SPS is aimed to be a reference to execute and monitor broadcasting system in Indonesia. Consequently, the P3 SPS is not a product of law whose purpose is to give a direct protection to the privacy, but rather as a regulation to decrease the potential of privacy violation in broadcasting execution.

However, the P3 SPS ought to be properly considered as one step forward to the protection of privacy. At least, a celebrity who feels that his/ her privacy is violated by the broadcasting execution could consider the P3 SPS as the first reference regarding the violation.

The broadcasting execution is not aimed to make one party loss because of a certain matter. Due to the fact, the on guarding of the broadcasting execution against the possibility of private violation should be encouraged.

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