Private information and media freedom

Helen, Fenwick and Fenwick, Daniel (2016) Private information and media freedom. In: Fenwick on Civil Liberties & Human Rights (5th ed). Routledge, Abingdon, UK, pp. 591-787. ISBN 9781138837935, 9781138837942, 9781315734767

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Abstract

The creation of a tort of invasion of privacy aimed at the protection of personal information against media intrusion filled one of the most serious lacunae in English law. Described by the Law Commission as ‘a glaring inadequacy’,2 and condemned by the Court of Appeal,3 dicta in a pre-Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) decision of the House of Lords4 remarked upon ‘the continuing, widespread concern at the apparent failure of the law’ in this area.5 That failure was remedied under this largely HRAdriven legal development although, as this chapter will argue, recent developments in 2012-15 have undermined the efficacy of the tort in practice to an extent. It must also be borne in mind that, as the House of Lords stated in Wainwright v Home Office,6 there is no general, comprehensive tort of invasion of privacy, reaching far beyond protection for private information.7

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