The Uniform Does Not Strip the Dignity

A phone comes up at a checkpoint. A police officer is mid-conversation with a driver. A soldier moves in to calm a tense crowd. An immigration officer is processing a queue. Within minutes, the moment is recorded, captioned, and uploaded, chasing likes, views, and followers. Sometimes it is genuine accountability. Increasingly, it is content farming.

Ghanaians have come to treat the uniform as an invitation, as though putting it on each morning means surrendering every right to dignity, privacy, and fair treatment. That assumption is not just unfair; it is legally wrong.

The Person Is Not the Post
A police officer, a soldier, an immigration officer, or a fire officer is a citizen first. Article 15 of the 1992 Constitution guarantees every person’s dignity, and Article 18 guarantees privacy of person, home, and correspondence. These rights do not evaporate because someone wears a uniform to work. What changes is scope, not existence: the on-duty conduct of a public officer is legitimately open to public scrutiny, but the person underneath the uniform is not fair game for whatever footage a bystander decides to capture and caption. There is a difference between watching a public servant do their job and turning a human being into content.

Recording May Be Lawful. Sharing Is Where the Law Bites.

No law in Ghana explicitly permits filming an officer on duty in a public place, and none explicitly bans it either. That silence is filled by Article 21 of the 1992 Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression, and that is what protects the act of recording.

But the moment that footage is uploaded, tagged, captioned, and pushed into public circulation, a different law takes over: The Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843). An officer’s face, voice, name, or service details captured on video become personal data the instant they are recorded and shared. Whoever posts it becomes, in effect, a processor of someone else’s personal data, and the Act does not care whether that processor is an institution or an individual with a smartphone.

Using that footage for legitimate public interest, such as exposing genuine misconduct, corruption, or brutality, sits differently under the law than using it to mock, humiliate, or incite a mob online. The clip may look identical; the intent and the legal exposure are not.

Being in a Public Place Does Not Strip an Officer’s Rights

Ghanaians now walk into police stations, stand at checkpoints and barriers, and film officers mid-duty, often provoking a reaction on purpose, then justify it with one line: “It’s a public space, I have every right.” That reasoning is false.

A security officer performing lawful duty in a public place does not lose their dignity, privacy, or constitutional rights simply because the setting is public. Public space describes where something happens; it does not describe what you are permitted to do to the person standing in it. The Constitution’s protection of dignity (Article 15) and privacy (Article 18) travels with the person, not the location. An officer at a barrier, in a station, or on a street is still a citizen entitled to those protections while doing their job. So the officer’s location being public does not mean:

• the public may provoke, harass, or bait them into a reaction
• any footage taken may be posted without consequence
• the officer forfeits the right to be treated with basic human dignity

The single idea to hold onto: “public place” is not a loophole. It was never meant to give citizens a licence to strip officers of the same rights every other Ghanaian enjoys.

The Laws Ghanaians Are Quietly Breaking

Several Ghanaian statutes converge on this one, ignored problem:

Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843): governs how personal data, including images and video of identifiable individuals, may be lawfully collected, processed, and shared. Posting a security officer’s image to shame or expose them, outside legitimate public interest, is processing personal data without lawful basis.

Cybersecurity Act, 2020 (Act 1038): already criminalises a range of online offences and unauthorised electronic conduct. Ghana’s Cybersecurity (Amendment) Bill, 2025, currently before Parliament, proposes to explicitly criminalise cyberbullying and online harassment (new Section 67A) and cyberstalking (new Section 67B), a clear signal that lawmakers recognise how far online mob conduct against individuals, uniformed or not, has gone.

Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29): existing provisions on defamation, threats, and harassment already apply where a video is paired with false claims or incitement against an officer.

Electronic Transactions Act, 2008 (Act 772): covers misuse of electronic records and communications, relevant where footage is manipulated, edited, or falsely presented.

These legal protections matter. But online judgement often comes before the full story.

Ten Seconds Is Not the Whole Story
Most viral clips capture a fragment: a raised voice, a scuffle, a stern command, with no before and no after. The public convicts on ten seconds, not the truth of a five-minute encounter. That is not journalism; it is narrative manipulation, and it causes real harm, officers doxxed, families threatened, careers damaged, over content nobody verified.

Accountability and Cruelty Are Not the Same Act

The most important distinction the public must learn: documenting abuse of power is accountability, while turning a person into a meme is cruelty. They can look identical on a screen, but they are not identical in law, and they should not be identical in conscience.

Before you post that video, ask:

• Am I documenting misconduct, or am I performing outrage?
• Have I verified the full context, or just the viral fragment?
• Would I be comfortable if this were done to me, or to someone I love, at my own workplace?

The uniform is a duty an officer carries for a shift. It was never meant to be a licence for the rest of us to strip away everything else they are.

About the Author
Jeremiah Salia is a Certified Data Protection Officer, Security Professional, and registered member of the Ghana Association of Privacy Professionals (GAPP), with hands-on experience in data governance and institutional security.

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