Slight "heavy" eLearning legal question....

Aug 28, 2014

Bruce Graham
By Bruce Graham

Hi - this is a good one

Let's imagine an eLearning developer was living in the UK, and was contacted to produce some courses by an SME. Purely for the sake of illustration, let's assume that these courses were about a subject illegal in the UK, (where the developer was a resident), yet the subject matter is perfectly legal in the place where the SME lived.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that the course was on euthanasia.

Would the UK developer be breaking any laws in assisting with the creation of the course? This...ahem...developer has absolutely no idea where to even get STARTED with trying to find an answer to this question, so anyone with SPECIFIC advice on where he might go for some help would be appreciated. I am sure that this could apply to a range of other topics, perhaps drug-related for example.

Has ANYONE ever come across this sort of topic before - where the unknown developer feels that a normal engagement might just not be the best way to go about it?

5 Replies
Bruce Graham
over 9 years ago08/28/14 at 6:11 am (UTC)

Matthew Bibby said:

Would this developer need to euthanase anybody in the making of this eLearning module? If so, that could be a problem.

While I'm not familiar with UK law, I'd be very surprised if developing this course would lead to legal trouble - but it is worth a quick call to the lawyer to make sure. Alternatively, check for books on euthanasia by UK authors and see if they have any special legal disclaimers at the start of the book?


LOL - I have been assured that practical assignments and scenarios are not required in these modules.

Your point to "...call the lawyer" is the crux - we in the UK, and this person (surprisingly....just like me) does not have "a lawyer", never had to use one except when we made our wills.

Good idea re books I will (get them to) have a look.

Thanks for the post (on their behalf...)

Bruce Graham
over 9 years ago08/28/14 at 9:05 am (UTC)

OK - so FYI, answered by an online solicitor service, but could get more from a lawyer.

This is enough for me as a starting point:

There isn't an offence in that per se and, in fact, many U tube videos cover topics like this.

The only potential option that I can see is something like the new incitement offence and then they would have to prove that you intended a person in the UK to watch the video and to act upon it which is hard for them to do.

Obviously it might suggest that you are in possession of xxxxxxxxx so there might be visits from the police but if they find nothing then that would fall away.

It had nothing to do with euthanasia, that was merely to illustrate the point, it was related to drugs.

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