Granted it's usually done in something substantially cleaner, but this is pretty much how professional kitchens thaw frozen meat.
Edit: here's my faq so people can stop assuming things about this method of thawing meat.
this is safe to do. Meat is cooked at temperatures that kill all potential bacteria and parasites, even for steaks cooked medium rare.
this is generally done with the meat still in the packaging, unless there's a dedicated place to thaw meat. The thawing container is washed before and after each use.
it's always done with cold, running water to prevent the meat from thawing unevenly or unsafely.
That sound marginally better but honestly I've never experienced a kitchen where it would be okay to thaw meat outside the fridge. This might be a Danish thing, but if the health inspector came by and saw that, the restaurant would probably get fined.
Having worked in several professional kitchens, I have to debunk this. You don't throw unpacked, raw meat into a zink (with or without water) to thaw it. You leave it in the fridge, preferably in a closed container until it's thawed. leaving it out in room temperature makes it a feast for bacteria.
I've helped thaw chicken in cold water when I worked in a kitchen. Like I said though, we did it in a substantially cleaner container dedicated to the purpose of thawing meat. It was a giant pot meant for cooking pasta.
this is safe to do. Meat is cooked at temperatures that kill all potential bacteria and parasites, even for steaks cooked medium rare.
this is generally done with the meat still in the packaging, unless there's a dedicated place to thaw meat. The thawing container is washed before and after each use.
it's always done with cold, running water to prevent the meat from thawing unevenly or unsafely.
I just wanted to make sure you know that food poisoning happens even when all microorganisms are already dead. Some bacterial toxins are resistant to high temperatures and can still cause disease even after their source has been killed. That's why cooking something that's been sitting around in warm or room temperature doesn't make it safe to eat, even though it makes of safer than not cooking it.
ServSafe, who does industry standard food safety certifications, condones defrosting frozen foods this way, submerged in cool running water. It's perfectly safe, although the method shown in the original picture will require cleaning the whole sink as raw. As stated, usually this is done with the food wrapped in plastic and placed in a smaller container.