Communications Law in PR

In our program, ethics is a hot topic. The other day in our Principles of Public Relations class, we had a discussion about communications law that I found interesting, but also a bit unsettling. It’s always unnerving to think about how much personal information is collected and stored daily about our individual locations, jobs, habits, and finances. So it was a comfort to find out that in Canada, there are certain privacy laws that exist to safeguard citizens from the unlawful use or sharing of this information. We were introduced to something I had never heard of, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, or PIPEDA for short. One example of what this act means for Canadians is that businesses must identify the purpose of their collection of information. In class, we applied this to a real world situation: when stores ask for your postal code or other personal information during your purchase. We discussed how technically, the cashier should not imply that the information is needed to make the purchase, as people sometimes tend to believe. Rather, the cashier should disclose that the information is being used for marketing purposes, thereby giving the consumer the option to deny that information.

The ethical grey areas of privacy laws become an even bigger issue in the PR world. As future PR practitioners, we will need to become more than familiar with communications and privacy law to protect ourselves, as well as the firms and businesses we will represent, from getting into any legal hot water. Consent releases will become our best friends, and knowing when to seek legal counsel will be a valuable asset. Knowing all of this will help us to avoid legal ramifications as well as embarrassment. We learned that the United Way of America recently suffered this type of misfortune when they were successfully sued by an 81-year-old man for using his picture on campaign posters and brochures without his permission.

Hopefully all the people in these photos signed consent releases.

Finally, we discussed the concepts of libel, slander, and defamation as they relate to the PR industry. Libelous accusations can occur during media interviews or news conferences, in media releases, or through social media. As PR practitioners, we must be cognizant of the factuality of our words and statements, no matter whether they are released under our own names or on behalf of a spokesperson or company. And again, if in doubt, a little legal counsel never hurt anybody. 

Perhaps Oscar Wilde would have been better off with a good PR person instead of a lawsuit....