Debate contribution: Traffic Collision Sites: Privacy and Dignity

Debate contribution by Mr Andrew McMurray on 8 December 2025.

MLA

Mr Andrew McMurray

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

8 December 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Traffic Collision Sites: Privacy and Dignity

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5284959

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank Mr McGlone for tabling the motion, and I thank the family members of those involved for taking the time to travel here today. For a long time, we have treated the online world as a separate realm that has limited impact on real life, but that is no longer appropriate. We are becoming increasingly aware of the real and substantial harm that online activities can create, whether those are child abuse, bullying, online scams or the capture and distribution of distressing footage of road traffic collisions. We are discussing the latter today, but it is important to recognise that the motion is part of a bigger piece of work, as Mr Frew referenced, of tackling the much wider picture of online harm. The Minister of Justice, who I thank for being here, has begun to tackle online harm in relation to violence against women and girls, and, in the previous mandate, she strengthened the law in that area by making cyberflashing a criminal offence. Furthermore, she introduced the new offences of adults pretending to be a child to groom a child and of disclosing or threatening to disclose private sexual images. Finally, Minister Long recently consulted on criminalising the creation and sharing of sexually explicit deepfake images. All those offences commonly happen online, and those are important steps in tackling online harm. Something else that those offences have in common is that they are an assault on a victim's dignity and privacy, and the same is true of taking images of serious or even fatal road traffic collisions or, for that matter, other tragic incidents. I pay tribute to the families who are here today. The family of John O'Brien, who was tragically killed in Newry this year, will know much about the videos that are being shared and how awful that is, with the loss of dignity and the sadness that goes with it. First and foremost, it is about dignity and privacy in the most intimate, private and personal moments, which, of course, include death. In this day and age, we are used to sharing and even oversharing a lot of our private lives, but I do not believe that we have lost the capacity for empathy yet. It has been expressed that the very idea of learning about someone's death through social media, be that by a message or some other way, does not bear thinking about. For members of the public, the one and only legitimate use of a smartphone at the site of a road traffic collision is to call 999. As Mr Frew described it, as a first-aider, you wonder what you would possibly do in such a scenario, but taking out your phone to voyeuristically capture such things does not bear thinking about. Taking pictures and videos of victims and distributing those images online is completely unacceptable. It can cause real hurt and emotional harm to families, and that should be reflected in the law. An individual was arrested under the Communications Act on suspicion of the misuse of a public electronic network to send a grossly offensive message. That is one route, but it does not tackle the pictures having been taken in the first place, and, among other considerations, it is ultimately dependent on the interpretation of whether the footage shared is grossly offensive. It would be helpful to have that clarity. Legislation to that effect is already in place in several European countries, and we should follow suit. Road safety is primarily a matter for the Infrastructure Minister, but this proposal touches on the responsibilities of, among others, the UK Government and the PSNI. The Minister for Infrastructure should do her part, and I urge her Department to work with key stakeholders to bring forward legislation as soon as possible.

632 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:11 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification