YouTube privacy policy leads to warning for Legendary

Bulletin: As instructed by YouTube, The Legendary edited the title information in the Dashcam video furnished by the Texas Department of Public Safety to eliminate Mr. Gooden's name within the 48-hour time period specified.

Publishing a DPS dashcam video released under the provisions of the Texas Open Records Act is possibly a violation of an area school administrator's privacy, according to YouTube, an on-line video broadcasting service.

In the video, a State Trooper arrests Mart School District Superintendent Todd Gooden and his wife, Mr. Gooden for driving while intoxicated, Mrs. Gooden for public intoxication.

AGrand Jury later declined to return a true bill of indictment for Mr.Gooden's alleged crime, a first offense case of a Class A Misdemeanor.(click here for a previous report)

Legendary Reporter R.S. Gates obtained a copy of the dashcam video under the provisions of the Texas Open Records Act, Section 552 of the Local Government Code, as well as copies of the “first page” offense and arrest reports.

The Legendary published a news story about the matter as an item gleaned from the public record.

In the video, Mr. Gooden denies having done any drinking after the trooper confronts him about nearly hitting his car where it was parked by the side of the road on I-35 near Bellmead. He claims they have been to a movie.

He gave a blood alcohol content sample, which was many percentage points over the legal limit for driving under the influence.

When the trooper questioned Mrs. Gooden, he asked if Mr. Gooden had been drinking, and she said he had, but not anywhere near as much as she had.

Then she contradicted Mr. Gooden's earlier assertion that they had been to a movie. She said they had been drinking at a popular downtown night spot named Crickett's.

In an e-mail sent at 10:12 a.m. On Thursday, March 28, YouTube has ordered The Legendary to either remove all mention of the names of the people on the video within 48 hours, or remove it altogether from the account. We reproduce their letter of warning here.

Dear Jim Parks,

This is to notify you that we have received a privacy complaint from an  

individual regarding your content:

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Video URLs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFwOotd2MtQ

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We would like to give you an opportunity to review the content in question  

and remove any personal information that may be used to uniquely identify  

or contact the complainant.

You have 48 hours to take action on the complaint. If you remove the  

alleged violation from the site within the 48 hours, the complaint filed  

will then be closed. If the potential privacy violation remains on the site  

after 48 hours, the complaint will be reviewed by the YouTube Team and may  

be removed pursuant to our Privacy Guidelines  

(http://www.youtube.com/t/privacy_guidelines). For content to be considered  

for removal, an individual must be uniquely identifiable by image, voice,  

full name, Social Security number, bank account number or contact  

information (e.g., home address, email address). Examples that would not  

violate our privacy guidelines include gamer tags, avatar names, and  

address information in which the individual is not named. We also take  

public interest, newsworthiness, and consent into account when determining  

if content should be removed for a privacy violation.

If the alleged violation is located within the video itself, you may have  

to remove the video completely. If someone's full name or other personal  

information is listed within the title, description, or tags of your video,  

you can edit this by going to My Videos and clicking the Edit button on the  

reported video. Making a video private is not an appropriate method of  

editing, as the status can be changed from private to public at any time.  

Because they can be turned off at any time, annotations are also not  

considered an acceptable solution.

We're committed to protecting our users and hope you understand the  

importance of respecting others' privacy. When uploading videos in the  

future, please remember not to post someone else's image or personal  

information without their consent. For more information, please review our  

Privacy Guidelines http://www.youtube.com/t/privacy_guidelines.