TV3 to pay $3000 over secret model footage

TV3 has been ordered to pay $3000 to a former magazine editor, after the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) found it breached his privacy by secretly filming him as he photographed semi-naked models in his bedroom.

The BSA upheld a complaint against TV3's parent company CanWest after it aired the hidden camera footage in February, in a television documentary called Stake Out: Models Exposed.

The footage showed the complainant, referred to as XY in the BSA decision, taking test photos of models who had told him they wanted to feature in the men's magazine he worked at.

Both women were actors hired by CanWest. One of the actors was 16 years-old, but told XY she was 19.

The TV programme said "word around the modelling industry" was that XY was luring young girls into his house for trial photo shoots, with the promise of getting work in his magazine.

But instead he intended to use the shots for a private website and DVD project, the programme said.

In its submission to the BSA, CanWest acknowledged that XY had not done anything illegal, and the models had approached him asking for a photo shoot, rather than the other way around.

However, the footage was a matter of public interest, the broadcaster argued, because it illustrated the dangers to young women who wanted to pursue a modelling career.

The programme had not suggested XY had lied to anyone, CanWest said.

But the programme's makers said the issue was: "What if this was happening to younger, less experienced models? Was this appropriate, professional behaviour?"

In his response to the submission, XY said he had told the women about the website project, and it was not in the public interest for CanWest to "poke their nose into what I do ... as long as I abide by New Zealand law, not some made up moral code".

He said it was the broadcaster who had acted unethically, by sending a 16-year-old girl into a situation where it knew she would be asked to adopt sexually suggestive poses.

The BSA upheld the complaint, and ordered CanWest to pay XY $3000 for breaching his privacy, as well as $393 in legal costs.

CanWest must also broadcast a statement on television within one month, summarising the BSA decision.

- NZPA