The PCC is the press industry's self
regulatory body, and the ruling was made as it comes under
increasing scrutiny in the wake of several high profile privacy
breaches by newspapers, including the interception of Royal aides'
phone messages, for which a News of the World journalist was jailed
last month.
The PCC said that Hello! had breached the
privacy clause of its Code of Practice.
"[Macpherson] made a particular effort to
choose a private holiday location, staying at a private villa on a
secluded island," said its adjudication. "The Commission took this
into account when making a decision under the Code."
Macpherson was holidaying on the island of
Mustique, a favourite of the super-rich because it has no public
beaches at all. She stayed at a private house with a private beach
on the exclusive island in order to protect her and her children's
privacy, her solicitors said.
Hello! said that it had been told that the
pictures were taken on a public beach. Because Macpherson was
looking straight into the camera lens in one picture, the magazine
said that it questioned whether she had a reasonable expectation of
privacy.
The magazine did make some concessions even
before the PCC's verdict, though, saying that it would not use the
images again or publish them on its website. The magazine's editor
said he would write a personal letter of apology to Macpherson, and
would pixellate her children's photos in any future case.
Macpherson also claimed that the pictures
breached the PCC's Code as relation to the depiction of children,
but the PCC ruled that since the photographs were not embarrassing
and did not concern the children's welfare there was no breach of
that clause.
The PCC has also announced that it will begin
to regulate audio and video material on newspapers' websites. After
an industry consultation, the PCC will regulate that content if it
is under the control of the newspaper's editor and if it has not
previously been edited or produced under the regulation of another
media regulator.
"The extension has been agreed recognizing
that 'on-line versions' of newspapers and magazines have moved on
from the internet replication of material that already existed in a
printed version of the publication to routinely carrying material
not available in print form," said a PCC statement.
"The range and quality of digital editorial
material offered by newspapers and magazines have expanded at a
dizzying pace over the last couple of years," said Sir Christopher
Meyer, the Chairman of the PCC. "These developments will only
accelerate. [The PCC wants to] demonstrate to the public that
editorial information in the digital age – regardless of the format
in which it is delivered – will be subject to high professional
standards overseen by the Commission”.
The PCC faces some calls from the political
world for it to be wound up and for statutory regulation to be put
in place. The PCC was established in the 1990s as a way for the
industry to prove that it could regulate itself.
Recent newspaper and magazine privacy cases
involving Prince Charles, the Royal Family's staff and Catherine
Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas have resulted in some calls for
regulation to be taken out of the industry's own hands.
