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A primary school teacher has won $15,000 from TVNZ after her breast augmentation was screened on prime-time television.
The woman, featured on the reality show Skin Doctors, told the Broadcasting Standards Authority she agreed to be filmed if she could approve the footage before it was shown.
She never viewed the final footage, and now TVNZ has been ordered to pay compensation.
The woman, who has name suppression, told the authority she thought she was being filmed for a "tasteful" documentary-style show.
The authority ruled that production company Cream Media failed to get her informed consent.
It said the November broadcast was a breach of her privacy "at the highest end of the scale".
In a decision issued yesterday, the authority said it accepted that TVNZ thought Cream had the woman's consent for the broadcast.
But the woman, who was approached by medical staff about appearing in the show, had made it clear she would not consent until she had seen the film.
The distressed woman said her elderly mother, the principal at the school where she works and some of her children had seen the episode - which showed her bare breasts, the surgery and her doctor's visits.
The school principal had raised the matter with the board of trustees because he was concerned children and parents might have seen it.
The authority said the woman had been personally and professionally hurt by the show.
It ordered TVNZ to pay the maximum compensation payment of $5000, $10,000 towards the woman's legal costs, $3000 of the Crown's costs, and to broadcast a statement summarising the decision.
TVNZ had argued the woman agreed to be filmed for the show.
When she did not come and view the final footage, the production company took legal advice and concluded she had given the broadcast her implied consent.
But the authority said staff emails showed Cream Media knew the woman wanted to see the footage first.
It rejected TVNZ's argument that she should have written to Cream if she wanted to pull out.
TVNZ spokeswoman Carly Orr said the broadcaster would be working with production companies to improve consent processes "so everyone knows what's involved".
The woman's lawyer did not return calls from the Herald yesterday.
