The Ben Stokes “news story” has revealed a gross lack of understanding of the privacy laws by the BBC Radio 4 presenter of the afternoon news program PM, Evan Davis. Her should really know better given the rising importance of this law. The BBC decided not to give the details splashed over the Read More
Category: Privacy law
Berlusconi behind Kate topless pictures?
Here’s a conspiracy. Silvio Berlusconi is behind the revelation of Kate Middleton’s upper half in France and Italy. He owns both magazines carrying the photos, Closer in France and Chi in Italy through Mondadori. He owns the mags His representatives say that the Italian media mogul had nothing to do with it. But as Mandy Read More
Law 1: Social network libertarians 0
The law may be slow because it is deliberate: but it gets there. Twitter may have seemed to be a bastion of private speech but a court order to Twitter from a California Court prompted by a UK case shows that it is not. A UK local council made Twitter reveal the details of a Read More
Mosley tries for pre-publication privacy notice
Max Mosley is trying to make UK newspapers and magazines tell the subjects of stories before publication what they are about. He claims this is necessary for those subjects to have their privacy defended. His lawyers were in the European Court of Human Rights today arguing that the UK should be told to introduce this Read More
Is he really a Wiked Witch?
Everyone in the media is closely following the current travails of Julian Assange and the ramifications of the Wikileaks news torrent. Whatever your political leanings, or opinion of the legal issues confronting Mr Assange (and I talk here of the civil suits threatened by the US among others, not the Swedish prosecutor’s charges), it is impossible to ignore the Read More
Privacy and deception
How far should privacy go? The Human Rights Act seems to make it clear: “Everyone has the right to privacy of their private and family life, their health and their correspondence,” it says in so many words. Yet what are the boundaries? This crucial question is raised again because the golfer Colin Montgomerie has won Read More
Jack opens the privacy Pandora box
Jack Straw, the justice minister, has opened up a review of privacy. He wants to “nudge” judges presumably towards restricting the defence of privacy. As for “judges” read Mr Justice Eady. He heard the Mosley case which prompted this review. As for the reason for opening up the review, read Paul Dacre, editor in chief Read More
Facebook in the libel and privacy net
Here’s one you might have missed while the Mosley case was going through. A man has won damages of £22,000 and costs for a false entry in Fasebook. He won both libel and privacy damages, as did his company.I can’t emphasise enough, the Internet is as much a publishing media as paper. Libel and privacy Read More
Stony-faced Eady presides over Mosley case
One sentence leapt out of the coverage today of the Max Mosley privacy action against the News of the World. “Mr Justice Eady sat stony-faced as he heard that the woman was known for arranging bondage sessions involving a man dressed in a judge’s gown and several girls,” wrote Dominic Kennedy in The Times. To Read More
Caution becomes the standard
I’ve already said that if you drew a line for the amount of freedom of expression granted in the UK over time, the line would now be dipping. At present there are at least 10 areas of law which pull down this line, making the areas journalists should write and talk about smaller and smaller. Read More