PR function in a crisis is subject to judicial procedures

I believe no one would doubt that past week is a dark week for the phone giant T-mobile as it has been revealed that one of its former staffs sold huge amount of customer data to its rivals for money. What is worse is that, according to Telegraph, this incident has happened “more than one year”.

From a public relation practitioner perspective, especially from the point of Ledingham, the responses of T-mobile should be criticised because it failed to inform affected customers of the incident immediately and made official announcement publicly to maintain and build mutual relationship.

However, a spokesman for T-mobile in an interview with BBC reporter explained that “[T-mobile] keep it secret [is] to avoid any criminal prosecutions being prejudiced.”

Well, here is the problem: will public relation approaches always work effectively in a crisis situation, or it is subject to other factors? From the case of T-mobile above, perhaps the answer we get is “NO”. It is true that in some circumstances those organisations which are suffering from crises have to keep “silent” in the name of justice, that is to say, whether public relation approaches could function in a crisis effectively is subject to the type of judicial procedures and relevant laws that are applied in that crisis situation.