Legal Considerations with live streaming

Key legal considerations when planning a live streaming event

We understand that live streaming may raise some legal concerns.
In order to help our clients to eliminate those legal risks we consulted the legal expert, Robert Bond, Bristows LLP. And we want to offer you some considerations and guidelines that will help you to assess potential challenges and risks associated with live streaming your event.

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    Legal considerations Solution
    • The presenter says something offensive or improper – no censoring available
    • Thorough briefing to presenter beforehand, ensure they practice a variety of scenarios so that they have experience in responding to questions/comments and in reacting spontaneously - without resorting to profanities, offensive language or insults.
    • Add note to disclaimer provided at sign-up to say that as the stream is live, it cannot be censored and whilst effort will be made to try to avoid such situations, users should be aware that mistakes can happen.
    • Prepare a PR strategy for responding when such situations arise.
    • Other participants make inappropriate responses or ask inappropriate questions, whether verbally or in a comment/question feed below the video
    • Consider live-monitoring of comments, to cut any lines where verbal inappropriate comments are made, or to remove any written offensive comments under the video.
    • Record usernames/email addresses/IP addresses of participants and block any users that make offensive comments from all future web participation.
    • Add a note to disclaimer provided at sign-up stating that offensive language will not be tolerated and explaining the actions that will be taken against anyone breaching this policy.
    • Add a note to disclaimer to state that the company cannot be responsible for the comments of external users and the fact that it has provided a platform for such comments does not mean that it endorses or supports such comments. .
    • Defamatory statement made by any participant
    • For internal: provide thorough training beforehand and make the speakers aware of any disciplinary measures that will be taken in the event such a statement is made.
    • For external: Add a note to disclaimer to state that the company cannot be responsible for the comments of external users and the fact that it has provided a platform for such comments does not mean that it endorses or supports such comments.
    • Take legal advice in case of a claim
    • The presenter makes a factually incorrect statement and does not correct themselves during the live stream
    • Prepare a PR strategy for responding to such a scenario. This would likely involve emailing a correction to everyone who signed up.
    • Could be in breach of GDPR if processing participants’ personal data without informing them or processing for purposes that are incompatible with the purpose for which they were collected
    • Add a link to the company’s privacy notice in the live stream sign-up form and make sure the privacy notice is updated to reflect all processing that relates to the live stream.
    • Do not further process the personal data for unrelated purposes.
    • Participant complains afterwards that they were not aware that their comments could be seen/heard by everyone else watching the stream
    • Make this fact clear in the sign-up form and again at the beginning of the live stream.
    • If the presenting company is a law firm/accountancy firm or similar, a viewer might
    • Add a note in the disclaimer at sign-up to say that the company is not offering legal or other professional advice.

    Robert Bond

    Robert Bond is a Solicitor and Notary Public and a Certified Compliance & Ethics Professional. He is a legal expert and author in the fields of data protection, information security and cyber risks, e-commerce, computer games and technology and has specialised in data protection & information security law since 1983. He is a Council Member of The Notaries' Society, Trustee of the UK Safer Internet Centre and South West Grid for Learning, 2nd Vice President and Board Member of the Society for Corporate Compliance & Ethics and also Health Care Compliance Association, Chairman of the Governance Board of the Data Protection Network, a founder member of the UN Global Pulse Privacy Advisory Group, and an Ambassador for Privacy by Design.

    If you need legal advice please contact Robert Bond by email
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