Video posted online of pedestrian hit by car a 'real violation' of privacy, ethics experts say

Dramatic video of a pedestrian being struck by a vehicle in Winnipeg was shared thousands of times on social media this week, and ethics experts warn the case is an example of people posting sensitive material online without considering the long-term effects.

"This is a case of someone's privacy being violated in a way that could be quite upsetting for them," said Neil MacArthur, director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba.

"Would you want a video like this shared without your permission?"

The issue stems from a crash at the corner of Simcoe Street and Sargent Avenue Wednesday that sent a 23-year-old woman to hospital. 

The driver was arrested at the scene and may face charges, police said.

As of Thursday, the woman remained in critical condition.

Video of the crash posted in a Facebook group devoted to hit-and-runs in Winnipeg has since been deleted, but Const. Rob Carver said putting the video online was the wrong thing to do.

"I think it's absolutely horrendous," he said.

MacArthur said Carver has a point. Police are still looking for witnesses to come forward, but MacArthur is skeptical about whether circulating the video on social media was helpful to the investigation.

"I do wonder what the real purpose of this Facebook group is: whether this is people who are seeking to help the police out and are seeking information about crimes and seeking witnesses, or whether this is just pure garishness," he said.

Emily Laidlaw raises the same question.

"It might be that they're aiming to help," said Laidlaw, associate professor of law at the University of Calgary and the ethics adviser to Calgary city council. 

"Often once these things go viral, it's not to help anybody, but it's really just kind of people feeding off of all the salacious details of incredibly private moments of loss for people."

Family consented to posting video

The video turned out to be surveillance footage from a building near the corner of the crash site, and it shows a pedestrian approach a crosswalk.

The pedestrian appears to press the crosswalk button more than once before stepping into the street. The crosswalk sign doesn't appear in the video so it's unclear whether it lit up accordingly to alert drivers before what happened next.

A westbound vehicle then enters the picture and hits the pedestrian.

A friend of the family of the woman hit in the crash obtained the surveillance video. They got permission from the family to post it in the hit-and-run Facebook group, a family member of the woman told CBC News.

Carver said whether or not the family in this case was OK with the video being posted isn't necessarily the point.

"You get some family that thinks it's great, some family is traumatized, so who gets to be the arbiter of that decision?" Carver said. "There's no filter."

'Wrinkle' to ethical concerns

Laidlaw said the fact that family appears to have consented adds "a wrinkle" to the ethical equation.

She suggested having family consent should temper criticisms about posting the video in this particular case, but she said there are broader concerns at play.

Our image and our pictures and videos of ourselves, these are really extensions of ourselves and it is a real violation to have them put out there without our consent.- Neil MacArthur

"It's not like some of the other scenarios that you hear about where, in essence, you have these people pulling out their phones and capturing crash scenes and other gory images" she said.

"But we still have this wider ethical issue which is, there's a lot of horrific things that happen that are in a public space, but that doesn't mean that the right thing to do is to amplify that by sharing it online," said Laidlaw. 

"Even if you're legally allowed to do something, it doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do."

Chance of re-traumatization

MacArthur said it's common for family to assume consent on behalf of a loved one in the event of an urgent situation when the person is incapacitated. This doesn't appear to be one of those "life or death" decisions, he said, and the victim hasn't had a say.

"This is something they could see in the future and be significantly retraumatized," he said.

MacArthur said this case underscores why everyone with a smartphone or social media account should reflect on the unforeseeable harms of posting.

"This has never happened before in history where every citizen has the power in their pocket to videotape somebody and post it for the entire world to see, and I think we as citizens really have to get our heads around the ethics of that," he said.

"Our image and our pictures and videos of ourselves, these are really extensions of ourselves and it is a real violation to have them put out there without our consent."