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  • Inter­pel­la­ti­on Hilt­pold (10.3396): Unaut­ho­ri­zed dis­se­mi­na­ti­on of pho­tos or vide­os and pro­tec­tion of the per­sons concerned 

Inter­pel­la­ti­on Hilt­pold (10.3396): Unaut­ho­ri­zed dis­se­mi­na­ti­on of pho­tos or vide­os and pro­tec­tion of the per­sons concerned

Inter­pel­la­ti­on Hilt­pold (10.3396): Unaut­ho­ri­zed dis­se­mi­na­ti­on of pho­tos or vide­os and pro­tec­tion of the per­sons concerned
Rejec­ted (19.6.2013)

Sub­mit­ted text

I request the Fede­ral Coun­cil to pro­vi­de infor­ma­ti­on on how the unaut­ho­ri­zed dis­se­mi­na­ti­on of images taken with the con­sent of the per­son recor­ded is trea­ted in cri­mi­nal law. If the lack of penal mea­su­res in this area is con­firm­ed, I ask the Fede­ral Coun­cil to also indi­ca­te whe­ther the pos­si­bi­li­ty of a revi­si­on of the law to this effect has alre­a­dy been exami­ned or is curr­ent­ly being examined. 

Justi­fi­ca­ti­on

Thanks to tech­no­lo­gi­cal pro­gress in recent years, pho­tos and vide­os can now be dis­se­mi­na­ted easi­ly and quick­ly via MMS, e‑mail or Inter­net uploads – to name just a few examp­les. More and more often, recor­dings made with the con­sent of the per­son con­cer­ned are dis­se­mi­na­ted wit­hout their know­ledge. This is espe­ci­al­ly true of pri­va­te images taken in con­fi­dence that are dis­se­mi­na­ted or published out of reven­ge or as a bad joke.

The Fede­ral Act on Data Pro­tec­tion and the pro­vi­si­ons of the Civil Code on the pro­tec­tion of per­so­na­li­ty (Artic­les 28ff. CC) do pro­vi­de some means of pre­ven­ti­on, defen­se and satis­fac­tion in cases such as the abo­ve. Howe­ver, the unaut­ho­ri­zed dis­se­mi­na­ti­on of pri­va­te images taken with the con­sent of the per­son con­cer­ned is appar­ent­ly not cover­ed by cri­mi­nal law (sub­ject to the cases listed in Artic­le 197 SCC).

State­ment of the Fede­ral Council

The Fede­ral Coun­cil natu­ral­ly shares the view expres­sed by the inter­pel­lant in essence, accor­ding to which it is not justi­fia­ble to dis­se­mi­na­te pri­va­te or even inti­ma­te pho­tos and vide­os via MMS, e‑mails or the Inter­net wit­hout the con­sent of the per­son con­cer­ned, even if they were taken with the con­sent of the per­son concerned.

Howe­ver, this con­duct is not punis­ha­ble per se, unless it is a vio­la­ti­on of honor under Artic­les 173 to 178 of the Swiss Cri­mi­nal Code (SCC; SR 311.0), which would be the case, for exam­p­le, in the case of fal­si­fi­ed pho­tos or vide­os with com­pon­ents that vio­la­te the honor of the per­son con­cer­ned. Moreo­ver, it is very unli­kely that the con­duct in que­sti­on would fall within the scope of Artic­le 67 of the Fede­ral Copy­right and Rela­ted Rights Act (URG; SR 231.1), as it is hard to ima­gi­ne that such pho­tos or vide­os could con­sti­tu­te works within the mea­ning of Artic­le 2 URG.

The con­duct in que­sti­on is the­r­e­fo­re not punis­hed under the appli­ca­ble cri­mi­nal law, but under civil law it is dif­fe­rent. It can be cover­ed by Artic­les 28ff. of the Swiss Civil Code (ZGB; SR 210). The right to one’s own image is one of the per­so­na­li­ty pro­tec­tion rights under Artic­le 28 of the Civil Code. Accor­din­gly, the dis­se­mi­na­ti­on of a pho­to­graph or a video wit­hout the con­sent of the per­son con­cer­ned con­sti­tu­tes a vio­la­ti­on of per­so­na­li­ty rights, regard­less of whe­ther the images were taken with the con­sent of the per­son men­tio­ned. This is sub­ject to the case in which the dis­se­mi­na­ti­on is justi­fi­ed by an over­ri­ding pri­va­te or public inte­rest. An over­ri­ding inte­rest is dee­med to be, for exam­p­le, the press’s duty to inform or the law (Art. 28 para. 2 of the Civil Code). The dis­se­mi­na­ti­on of pho­tos and vide­os under the con­di­ti­ons descri­bed by the inter­pel­lant con­sti­tu­tes a vio­la­ti­on of the per­so­na­li­ty of the per­son con­cer­ned that is not justi­fi­ed by an over­ri­ding pri­va­te or public inte­rest and is the­r­e­fo­re unlawful. In addi­ti­on to the actions for dama­ges and for satis­fac­tion as well as for sur­ren­der of the pro­fit pur­su­ant to the pro­vi­si­ons on manage­ment wit­hout man­da­te (Art. 28a para. 3 CC) and the pre­cau­tio­na­ry mea­su­res (Art. 28c CC), the per­son con­cer­ned can defend hims­elf against an unlawful inter­fe­rence with his per­so­na­li­ty by app­ly­ing to the court to pro­hi­bit the inf­rin­ge­ment (Art. 28a para. 1 item 1 CC), to reme­dy it (Art. 28a para. 1 item 2 CC) or to estab­lish its unlawful­ness (Art. 28a para. 1 item 3 CC). It should be noted that the con­duct refer­red to by the inter­pel­lant is also cover­ed by the Fede­ral Act of 19 June 1992 on Data Pro­tec­tion (FADP; 235.1), in par­ti­cu­lar by Artic­les 2, 3 let­ters a and e, 4 para­graph 3, 12, 13 and 15 FADP. Howe­ver, the­se pro­vi­si­ons do not go bey­ond Artic­le 28 CC, and Artic­le 15 FADP refers, with regard to the rights of the data sub­ject and the pro­ce­du­re, to Artic­les 28 et seq. CC. Final­ly, in con­nec­tion with the rela­ted topic of cyber-bul­ly­ing, it should be men­tio­ned that the Fede­ral Coun­cil con­clu­ded in the report of 26 May 2010 on the sett­le­ment of the postu­la­te Schmid-Fede­rer 08.3050 that the exi­sting stan­dards are suf­fi­ci­ent to pro­se­cu­te and punish this form of bullying.

The Fede­ral Coun­cil is of the opi­ni­on that the abo­ve-men­tio­ned regu­la­ti­on is suf­fi­ci­ent to effec­tively defend the rights of the per­son con­cer­ned against the con­duct refer­red to by the inter­pel­lant. In this regard, it should be men­tio­ned that cri­mi­nal law should only punish a con­duct if the other pro­vi­si­ons of the legal order are not suf­fi­ci­ent. It fol­lows that the Fede­ral Coun­cil has not con­side­red it neces­sa­ry, or does not con­sider it neces­sa­ry, to go fur­ther into the que­sti­on of the appro­pria­ten­ess of a pro­vi­si­on that would punish the con­duct in que­sti­on under cri­mi­nal law.