British Photographic Council reacts to police pixellation report

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The British Photographic Council (BPC) has reacted angrily to recent reports that press photographers had met informally with members of the Metropolitan Police to agree a pixellation policy.

On August 21 Press Gazette reported that after a meeting with senior officers from CO19, the Metropolitan Police's Specialist Firearms Command, an agreement had been reached that London photographers would pixellate out the identities of firearms officers pre-publication.

Nigel Howard, a photographer for the Evening Standard, was reported as saying he was happy to obscure police officers’ faces. The Metropolitan Police, however, has now assured the BPC that no new policy is in place.

After the initial report the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) condemned the meeting and the BPC released a statement, saying they were 'disappointed that the results of an informal meeting between CO19 (Firearms) Officers and a very small number of independent photographers should result in what appears to be reported as an attempt to vary the Metropolitan Police and ACPO [Association of Chief Police Officer] Media Guidelines.'

"The guidelines for police clearly state: members of the media have a duty to take photographs and film incidents and we have no legal power or moral responsibility to prevent or restrict what they record," said Paul Stewart, speaking on behalf of the BPC.

"It is a matter for their editors to control what is published or broadcast, not the police. Once images are recorded, we have no power to delete or confiscate them without a court order, even if we think they contain damaging or useful evidence."

"The police seem to feel that there is some kind of gentleman's agreement that says that we will always pixellate the face of armed officers. This is not the case and any blurring or pixellation of images would be done by the picture desk on a case by case basis. The report in the Press Gazette stated that the police, 'will be issuing guidelines to all London papers soon.' We are relieved to have been assured by the Met Police that this is not in fact true."