Privacy Case Studies PCC

7/31/2019 Privacy Case Studies PCC

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Case studies

Privacy


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Privacy

Privacy: Is an EU law Article 8 of human right

which says every individual has right to a

private life. It came into force in the UK in

2000, and overrides British law.

UK: Public interest


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Timeline of famous cases and Privacy

In 2001, just after the human rightsact was introduced in 2000, thelawyers of the killers of Jamie Bulgerasked that the killers, RobertThompson and Jon Venables, to have

their identify protected. The first case in the UK which tried to

push for a privacy law to protect themedia from publishing this personalinformation.

The Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss,

president of the High Court FamilyDivision rules under Article 2 RightFor Life.


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2004

Naomi Campbell tried to sue the

Mirror for publishing pictures of

her leaving narcotics anonymous.

She first lost her case against the

paper who won in favour of the

public interest.

In 2004, she had previous judgmentover turned and she won based on

a breach of confidentiality.


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Naomis case is important as it hinted at a

change in the law, from where there was once

no privacy law.

This case hinted that the UK, unlike other

countries who have a history of privacy was

now moving in that direction.


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Catherine Zeta Jones Michael Douglas

2003: Catherine Zeta Jones

and Michael Douglas try and

sue Hello for publishing

pictures of their wedding day.

The judge did not rule infavour of privacy, but in favour

of breach of confidentiality, as

they had already signed a

contract with OK magazine, sowhen hello published these

pictures they were acting

unlawfully and the contract

was not with Hello.


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Privacy or public interest. In 2008, Formula one boss

Max Mosley today won

60,000 in his privacy action

against the News of the

World after the Sunday

tabloid falsely accused him of

taking part in a "sick Naziorgy".

The newspaper believed that

publishing the pictures was in

the public interest, but the

judge ruled in favour ofprivacy

The Judge found in favour of Mosley and

said: "But there was no public interest or

other justification for the clandestine

recording, for the publication of the

resulting information and still

photographs, or for the placing of the

video extracts on the News of the World

website all of this on a massive scale.

In the face of Max Mosley, all the

newspapers lost their bottle and settled

everything because they recognised that there

was a change in law," said Mark Stephens, amedia lawyer.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/24/privacy.newsoftheworld1http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/24/privacy.newsoftheworld1


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Ashley Cole

Ashley Cole triedto use the samedefence as MaxMosley when he

said that hisprivate life hadbeen intrudedwhen the Daily

Mirror reportedhe had beencheating on hiswife.


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Judge rules in favour public interest

John Terry tried but failed touse an injunction to stop anewspaper publishing themarried father of two had anaffair with a former team-mates girlfriend.

What is an Injunction? An injunction is viewed as a

backdoor privacy law..

This is because unlike Moseleywhere the pictures werepublished, an injunctionhappens before the papergoes to print. This was the firstcase since Moseley whichwent in the favour of publicinterest rather than aninjunction.

The judge in the case Mr Justice Tugendhat

said that freedom of expression outweighed

Terrys right to suppress the reporting of hisaffair, which will cast doubt on his England

captaincy and could affect his multi-million-

pound sponsorship deals with Samsung,

Umbro and Nationwide

This judgment is very, very important it is a

landmark decision. It sets a precedent which

should prevent unnecessary restraint on

cases which are in the public interest, said

Lord Lester QC, one of the countrys leading

media lawyers.


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Why Terrys case was important

Before John Terry, celebrities since Max Moseley were

specifically winning their cases based on privacy law.

This meant newspapers were scared that if they

published something they could be sued, and that their

public interest defence was being overtaken by privacylaw.

Terrys case was important because it shifted some ofthe balance back to the newspapers and press

freedom.

This can be seen with an escalation of stories about

Vernon Kay and Ashley Cole after Terry lost his case.


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News of the world phone hacking

2011

Public interest and press freedom was winningthe debate.

However the News Of The World issued astatement to apologise about the phone hackingand set up a 20 million compensation fund forcelebrity victims of this scandal.

This controversy showed that the press wereacting beyond their reach

In 2009, the PCC investigated the News of theworld and found there was no evidence tosuggest phone hacking.


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PCC phone hacking

The guardian newspaper published in 2009, it believed

phone hacking was widespread in the industry, and

after the PCC report into this which found no evidence,many were critical of the report, because they see it as

editors investigating themselves.

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger rubbished the findings

saying they were "worse than pointless" and called for

the powers of the "weak" regulator to be enhanced to

establish some form of investigatory mechanism We all know where this is going


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Super injunctions

Celebrities are now using super injunctions to

stop the press even printing.

This means that they do not have to claim after

the event to the PCC, they instead go to court to

stop the paper from printing the story.

If super injunctions continue being sought, this

means the PCC are unable to fulfil their objectiveto regulate and deal with complaints on the

general publics.


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Problems with PCC being ineffectual

It is seen as unaccountable because it is run by

editors.

This was one criticism raised by an MP

If celebrities are taking their complaints about

the press through the court system rather

than the PCC, this implies a fault or

ineffectiveness in the regulatory system.


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Today-Cameron Uneasy about a

privacy law. David Cameron hinted that Parliament may step

in and take over the creation of privacy lawsfrom judges. He said Parliament's failure to acthas meant judges have used the EuropeanConvention on Human Rights to build up privacylaw.

His comments come after a number ofcelebrities used injunctions and super-

injunctions to prevent details of their privatelives being published.

Asked for his views while he was campaigning inLuton for the local elections, Mr Cameron said:"What's happening here is that the judges areusing the European Convention on Human Rightsto deliver a sort of privacy law withoutParliament saying so. The unspoken attitude ofministers has been that they want a law that willcurb tabloid intrusion into private lives, but donot want to be seen to be the ones bringing it in,in case the public thinks they are trying toprotect themselves.

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Privacy Case Studies PCC