When you call 911 you expect a certain level of privacy and professionalism, but there are some public safety responders who either intentionally or not (Ok…most intentionally), capture you in their selfies and social media applications. The public is another story — with the proliferation of social media apps and easy-to-use video capture devices not much of what happens in the street today is private. Now a new type of home invasion is being revealed as first responders take pictures and video at scenes.

In the not so distant past, most of what happened when someone called 911 was limited to brief stories that may be published in a local newspaper’s “Police Blotter”. Today photos, video, and audio recordings can be streamed real time long before emergency responders ever reach the scene — they can also capture people at their most vulnerable times and then post the collected images.

Public safety responders are not immune to social trends including the “selfie”. Emergency medical services personnel spend a great deal of time on standby waiting for an emergency call. During this time they often capture their daily activities from checking out their equipment, spending time with their work partner, and even responding to calls. Most organizations have policies in place that govern the collection of photos on duty, but it is a difficult policy to enforce and a very fine line in regard to an individual right to free speech.

The good news is that few truly bad cases have been identified over the years. In most cases responders were unware of policies or shared information casually not realizing the impact to the patient or others that may have been captured in photos or videos. In some cases however, there is simply no excuse for the insensitive taking and use of photos and public safety responders need to lose their job.

For example, a paramedic captured her own image along with a patient that was deceased and then flipped off the patient in a photo that was then posted to social media. Clearly she needed to be fired — one has to wonder how she could have ever thought that type of behavior was remotely acceptable.

Understanding that most public safety responders are responsible and there to provide help to those in need, you need to be aware of your surroundings. It is appropriate to ask responders if you are being recorded in any way, although it is not likely that you would remember to ask in an emergency situation. Asking to have recording devices turned off may not be an option since most intentional recording is used for quality improvement or as part of the medical record.

It is absolutely appropriate to ask responders to not take photos or videos of you with free standing devices such as smartphones, video cameras, etc. In these cases, if the responder does not honor your request immediately ask to have a supervisor sent to your location or meet you after arrival at the hospital. You also have the right to have a copy of all records that were collected as part of the response — in some cases this may require legal orders but it is always best to start with the provider of services first.

What may be difficult to see in all this is that the burden of protecting your privacy is presumptively on you. For every person that is found to have posted some outrageously inappropriate content of patients on social media, how many others go unnoticed or unreported by people who can identify the victims in the postings? The easy argument to this is that if youi don’t know about it, or you aren’t identified by name in the posting, what is the big deal? You can’t be embarrassed by something you don’t know about.

There are two points to make here. Your privacy should belong to you, and by someone else posting pictures or information about you on the Internet, they are stealing something that is uniquely yours. Second, just because you don’t know about a posting today, doesn’t mean that you won’t be identified tomorrow or five years from now. As facial recognition improves and databases of identified people grow, you can be assured that anonymity on the Internet is soon to be a thing of the quaint past.