Guidance for event participants
Journalists can be invited to and attend public events and lecture series hosted by the University of Konstanz in order to report on them. During events, they may make video or audio recordings for potential publication.
Since freedom of the press is especially protected under German Basic Law (Grundgesetz, GG), the media has the responsibility to consider the informational self-determination of the respective persons in audio, video and photo recordings and the right to publish such recordings without the express consent of the corresponding persons. These considerations take place on the basis of the code of ethics from the Presserat (in German). This means, for example, that identifying information can only be published when the public interest outweighs the respective persons' interests worthy of protection.
Please take note of this fact and inform the event organizer or, if applicable, use the written chat option, if you do not want your voice or image to be recorded.
Guidance for journalists
As per the especially protected freedom of the press, journalists have the right to report freely and independently on University of Konstanz events. We kindly ask journalists to carefully weigh the general personal freedoms and informational self-determination of participants before broadcasting video or audio recordings of university events on TV, the radio or the internet or before publishing other identifying characteristics of the corresponding persons,as per the code of ethics from the Presserat (in German).
Publication without the consent of the respective persons should only take place when the public interest outweighs the respective persons' interests worthy of protection. These considerations should be taken particularly carefully, since our event participants are protected by the freedom of research and teaching as well as the freedom of the press (Article 5 GG) in addition to being in a protected context at University of Konstanz events.
It is more transparent and desirable with regard to conformity with the applicable legal regulations if event participants actively take note that journalists are present. For this reason, it is desirable for journalists to take care to inform participants at the beginning of events that they are making audio, video and photo recordings. The best way to ensure this is for journalists to inform the event organizers ahead of time that they will be attending the event and to briefly introduce themselves at the event.