FOURTH SECTION
CASE OF BILD GMBH & CO. KG v. GERMANY
(Application no. 9602/18)
JUDGMENT
Art 10 • Freedom of expression • Injunction ordering news website company to cease
publication of CCTV footage of a police arrest without blurring one of the faces of the police
officers • Injunction related to two publications but also to any future publication of unedited
footage regardless of accompanying coverage • Civil servants, including police officers, in
absence of allegations of prior misconduct, not deprived of a legitimate interest in protecting
their private life against, inter alia, falsely being portrayed as abusing their office • Albeit no
general rule under Art 8 that police officers should generally not be recognisable in press
publications, circumstances may exist in which the interest in the protection of an individual
officer’s private life prevailed • Domestic courts’ balancing of competing Art 8 and 10 rights
sufficient in respect of the first publication but not the second and any future publication •
Particular significance attached to editorial presentation of the first publication • Failure to
evaluate to what extent the image’s publication could contribute to a public debate • General
reasoning that any unpixellated coverage would be unlawful even if reflecting the police
intervention’s actual circumstances without depicting the police officer negatively, could
lead to an unacceptable ban of any non-consensual future publication, of unedited images of
police officers performing duties irrespective of public interest in use of force by police •
Interference not “necessary in a democratic society”
STRASBOURG
31 October 2023
This judgment will become final in the circumstances set out in Article 44 § 2 of the
Convention. It may be subject to editorial revision.