A workshop films a customer’s burnout and puts it on the business page with a caption backing the driver in. Nobody in the clip is identified and nobody is charged with the driving. The person who posted it still has a problem, because in Queensland publishing a hooning video can be an offence in its own right.
It is not an add-on to the driving charge, and it does not depend on the driver being prosecuted. Three separate provisions are in play. They catch different people, and only one of them turns on your having operated the vehicle at all.
Three provisions, not one
Section 26B of the Summary Offences Act 2005 (Qld) is the broad one, and it is the one that reaches businesses. A person must not, without reasonable excuse, publish material on a social media platform or an online social network where two things are true: the material depicts conduct that constitutes a prescribed offence, and the person publishes it to glorify that conduct or to increase someone’s reputation because of their involvement in it. Prescribed offence is defined broadly and expressly includes an offence involving driving or operating a vehicle. The maximum is 2 years imprisonment. It was inserted by the Queensland Community Safety Act 2024 (Qld).
Section 328A(1A) of the Criminal Code (Qld) deals with the offender. Dangerous operation of a vehicle, which reaches anyone who operates or in any way interferes with the operation of a vehicle, is ordinarily a misdemeanour carrying 200 penalty units or 3 years. Where the offender publishes material on social media to advertise their own involvement, or the act constituting the offence, it becomes a crime and the ceiling rises to 400 penalty units or 5 years, a fine of $69,080 at the prescribed penalty unit value of $172.70. That is a more serious form of the driving offence rather than a free-standing publishing offence, and it reaches only the person who committed it.
Section 19C(1)(d) of the Summary Offences Act 2005 (Qld) targets promotion. It is an offence to photograph or film a vehicle being used to commit a racing, burn out or other hooning offence, or to publish such a photograph or film, where you do so to organise, promote or encourage someone else taking part in, or spectating at, a hooning group activity. The maximum is 40 penalty units, or $6,908, or 1 year’s imprisonment.
Section 26B(4) stops one particular doubling up. A person may not be convicted both of a section 26B offence relating to material depicting a listed Criminal Code or weapons offence, and of that listed offence carrying the social media circumstance of aggravation. Dangerous operation under section 328A(1) is one of those listed offences. That bar aside, nothing stops the three provisions operating alongside one another.
| Provision | Who it catches | Maximum |
|---|---|---|
| Summary Offences Act s 26B | Anyone who publishes, driver or not, to glorify the conduct or lift a reputation | 2 years imprisonment |
| Criminal Code s 328A(1A) | The offender, where they publish to advertise their own involvement | 400 penalty units or 5 years |
| Summary Offences Act s 19C(1)(d) | Anyone who films or publishes to promote taking part in or spectating at hooning | 40 penalty units or 1 year |
The purpose element is where businesses get caught
Publication on its own is not the offence. Section 26B requires the material to depict conduct constituting a prescribed offence, and it requires a particular purpose. The purpose element is the one that catches businesses out.
Section 26B(1)(b)(ii) covers publishing to increase the person’s reputation, or another person’s reputation, because of their involvement in the conduct. Read that against a promotional repost. Where a performance shop puts a customer’s burnout on its story with an approving caption, the caption is evidence from which the required purpose may be inferred, though whether it is made out turns on the words used and the context. The business does not need to have been anywhere near the driving; it needs only to have published with that purpose. The limb about your own reputation is narrower, engaging only where the increase is because of the business’s own involvement.
The Criminal Code makes a related point about audience. Under section 328A(6), advertise means to attract the notice and attention of the public or a limited section of the public. That is wide enough to take in a follower list, and potentially a close friends list, a private story or a members-only group, depending on the nature of the group. Restricting who sees a post does not by itself put it outside the definition.
A person may be proceeded against for, and convicted of, an offence against subsection (1) whether or not anyone has been proceeded against for, or convicted of, the prescribed offence. Summary Offences Act 2005 (Qld) s 26B(3)
You did not have to be driving
Section 26B(3) is the provision most often overlooked. The publishing offence does not depend on anyone else being prosecuted. The driver may never be identified, may be identified and never charged, or may be charged and dealt with separately, and none of that is a precondition.
What the subsection does not do is remove an element. The prosecution still has to prove, to the criminal standard and in your own proceeding, that the material depicts conduct constituting a prescribed offence and that you published it for a prohibited purpose. All subsection (3) removes is any need to establish that by first convicting somebody else.
So footage filmed by a third party, sent in to the business and then reposted by a staff member, can expose that staff member directly, on a charge that stands on its own. This is the gap section 26B fills. The Criminal Code provision reaches only an offender publishing their own dangerous operation. Section 26B is not confined that way: it can catch a publisher who had nothing to do with the driving, and it can catch one who did, subject only to the double-conviction bar in section 26B(4).
Where the line sits
None of this makes vehicle content off limits, and the boundary matters more to most businesses than the penalties do. The first threshold is whether the footage depicts conduct that actually constitutes an offence. It is only a threshold: the purpose element and, for section 26B, the absence of a reasonable excuse still have to be made out, so neutral or disapproving publication is not caught merely because the footage shows an offence.
Sanctioned motorsport is treated differently. For section 328A, place is defined to exclude a place being lawfully used to race or test vehicles under a licence or another authority under an Act, and from which other traffic is excluded at the time. Properly authorised, closed events sit outside that definition.
Private property is not automatically outside these provisions, and each reaches it by a different route. Section 328A applies in any place, subject only to that exclusion. Section 19C turns on the particular offence picked up by section 19B, which draws on the type 1 vehicle related offences in section 69A(1) of the Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000 (Qld); several of those do depend on a road or a public place, and that is a question of fact rather than of who owns the land. Section 26B turns on whether the conduct depicted constitutes a prescribed offence at all, which makes it the widest of the three, covering any offence involving driving or operating a vehicle.
Nor is any of this confined to cars. Amendments commencing in 2026 extended division 4A to e-mobility devices, so under section 19AA a vehicle for that division now covers a personal mobility device and an electrically power-assisted cycle. Section 26B never depended on that change, because outside division 4A the Act’s dictionary already reached a bicycle and a boat.
The journalist exclusion, and what sits beside it
Section 26B(2) excludes publication by a journalist in the course of their activities as a journalist, and journalist takes its meaning from section 14R of the Evidence Act 1977 (Qld). That definition turns on what the person is engaged and active in doing: gathering and assessing information about matters of public interest, and preparing it, or providing comment on or analysis of it, for publication in a news medium. The question is whether the publication was made in the course of journalism, not whether the account is a business page. Separately, section 26B(1) opens with the words “without reasonable excuse”, a distinct qualification which is not defined and depends on the circumstances.
Section 19C is arranged differently, and the difference matters. Its examples of reasonable excuse in section 19C(3), covering journalists and people gathering information in order to report it to police, are expressly directed to the spectating offence in section 19C(1)(b). They do not attach to the publishing offence in section 19C(1)(d). Filming in order to report something to police therefore does not carry across into a licence to publish it. If that is the reason for the recording, the footage should go to police, not onto the account.
What a company structure does and does not do
Person includes an individual and a corporation under schedule 1 of the Acts Interpretation Act 1954 (Qld), so a company is capable of being charged. Section 26B is unusual in that it sets imprisonment as its only maximum, with no fine attached, and imprisonment cannot be imposed on a company. That does not put a company beyond reach, and assuming it does is the mistake to avoid. Under section 181A of the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992 (Qld), where an Act makes imprisonment the only punishment and a body corporate is convicted, the court may fine it instead. Where the maximum is more than 1 year but not more than 2 years, which is where section 26B sits, the fine may be up to 1,660 penalty units, or $286,682 at the current unit value.
Where a fine is already prescribed, the corporate maximum is 5 times the individual maximum under section 181B of the same Act. For a section 19C offence that is 200 penalty units, or $34,540. None of this displaces the individual who published, who remains exposed in their own right.
What this means for you
Know what is already on the account
Section 26B was inserted in 2024, and section 19C was introduced in 2023, remade in 2024 and amended again in 2026. Content published before those dates raises its own questions, worth advice rather than assumption. Work through the archive, the reels and the highlights, and identify anything showing driving conduct that could constitute an offence. The caption matters as much as the footage, because it is usually the clearest evidence of purpose.
Treat a reshare as publishing
Nothing in section 26B distinguishes original content from a reshare. A story repost, a tagged video pushed to the main feed, a duet, and a customer’s clip that arrives by direct message and is then put up on the account are all capable of being publication. Receiving the clip is not the act; disseminating it is.
Decide in writing who may post
Most businesses have never recorded who holds the account credentials, so if a question arises about a post it gets answered by whoever is on the login or on the thread approving it. A short written policy naming who may publish, and requiring sign-off before any driving footage goes up, is inexpensive and does real work.
Enforcement in practice
These provisions are being used. Following hooning on the Gateway Bridge at Murarrie on New Year’s Eve 2025, the Queensland Police Service charged six people with 40 offences and seized 13 vehicles. The charges included dangerous operation of a vehicle with publishing material on social media, which is the Criminal Code provision, and participating in a hooning group activity under section 19C. Two further men were issued infringement notices which included $667 each for spectating without reasonable excuse. That illustrates the offender-side and participation provisions rather than section 26B, but the direction of travel is the point: people are being charged for what was published and for being present, not only for what was driven.
Published 17 August 2026.
Where this leaves a business account
For a business publishing footage of someone else’s driving, the exposure is not the driving at all. It is the decision to publish, and the reason for it. The current text is on the Queensland Legislation site: section 26B and section 19C, and section 328A of the Criminal Code (Qld).
Related reading
- Criminal law at Fraser Lawyers
- Traffic law at Fraser Lawyers
- Commercial law at Fraser Lawyers
- What the July 2026 penalty unit increase changed
- Contact Fraser Lawyers
Need advice? Businesses that publish vehicle content are welcome to talk to us about where the line sits for the material they post, and about a written policy for who may publish it. If police have made contact about content on an account, contact Fraser Lawyers to understand where you stand, with no obligation. |
This article is general information only and is not legal advice. Whether any provision applies depends on the particular facts, and Queensland law can change. Contact Fraser Lawyers for advice specific to your circumstances.
If you would like to discuss your matter, you can book a consultation or call (07) 5554 6116.
