A video recording of a woman's reaction to having missed her New Year's Eve ferry to Vancouver Island has gone viral, but is now raising concerns about privacy.

The video, posted by the group Spotted in Victoria, shows the unidentified woman after she's told she was too late to board the ferry, even though it hadn't left yet.

"We're at 400,000 views now on the video. The post itself has reached up to 800,000 people," said Austin Singhera, of Spotted in Victoria.

Singhera and friend Pavitar Sidhu are university students who started the Facebook page Spotted in Victoria last year.

"She may have been going to a party. We're not sure. This was on New Year's Eve, so she was maybe coming back to Victoria for a party or a get-together or something, but she'd missed it by three minutes," said Singhera.

He said they've never seen this type of reaction to anything they've posted.

"Obviously, it's something that people found funny or found interesting so they shared it with a lot of their friends and it's just the power of social media now. We never thought something like this could be possible," said Singhera.

Expectation of privacy?

It's unclear if the woman in the video could claim that her privacy has been violated.

Under B.C. law, individuals have a right to privacy, but the courts have struggled with defining what is a reasonable expectation to privacy, says privacy and defamation lawyer Daniel Reid.

"Chances are, if someone was to start a lawsuit and say you invaded my privacy, the defence is you don't really have a reasonable expectation of privacy when you're in a ferry terminal," Reid told CBC Vancouver host Andrew Chang.

"Where it gets difficult is, the courts haven't really figured out what happens when that gets loaded up on to YouTube or another website," he added.

"There are no cases out there that talk about, do you have a different expectation of privacy about something published to the world at large?"

Strong reaction on social media

CBCNews.ca readers reacted to the video strongly on social media.

One commenter on CBC's Facebook page said the video was "tasteless."

"We don't know anything about this woman. Yes, it could be a lack of emotional control, and it could also be a serious mental health episode," said Geoffrey Dice.

"I refuse to watch this. I don't need to see someone having a hard time. I wouldn't like it if someone caught me at my worst and posted it on FB to go viral," said commenter Cara Gosse.

"Everyone is fighting a battle and maybe this person had a breaking point. Maybe the real reason wasn't even evident. I can't believe this made the news."

Still, many others said the woman's behaviour was out of proportion.

"It's actually amusing to watch people lose their attitude over something so petty. Just shows how immature people can get," said commenter Al Ban Dali.

Susan Erickson said, "If you're gonna throw a tantrum in public, it's no longer a private moment!"