ABSTRACT
The British media privacy right is developing a creativity and dynamism that has crossed the line of anything that would be envisaged and tolerated by the US Supreme Court. Despite the protestations of Paul Dacre, the editor of the British newspaper the Daily Mail, UK privacy rights now protect the dignity, intimacy and personal family space of private and public individuals. The British courts are taking on the Strasbourg jurisprudence set out in the Princess Caroline von Hannover case of 2004, that public figure status in terms of character par excellence does not result in the surrendering of performance of private being in public space. The zone of interaction of a person with others, even in the public context, which may fall within the scope of private life, has expanded. (Clayton and Tomlinson 2009) Private life is personal identity, physical and psychological integrity. The horse has long bolted from the stable and Mr Dacre’s attack on the decisions of High Court Judge Sir David Eady has not fully understood that key decisions had already been taken by other judges in courts before him and above him:
inexorably, and insidiously, the British Press is having a privacy law imposed on it, which – apart from allowing the corrupt and the crooked to sleep easily in their beds – is, I would argue, undermining the ability of mass circulation newspapers to sell newspapers in an ever more difficult market. This law is not coming from Parliament – no, that would smack of democracy.
