ABSTRACT
This chapter elaborates somewhat the contrast between the simple coherentist fault-based model of liability for unintentional harms and the regulatory-instrumentalist model that seeks to support innovation while managing and maintaining risks to human health and safety at acceptable levels. The development of tort law runs parallel with that of criminal law. The ‘first disruption’ signals the emergence of a more regulatory approach. As regulatory law emerges, tort law is not just supplemented by health and safety inspectorates and by insurance schemes, it is reworked in support of background policy objectives. Regulatory-instrumentalists seek to balance the sometimes competing demands of the community that there should be support for beneficial innovation and that the risks to human health and safety, property and so on that are presented by innovative technologies should be managed at an acceptable level. Surveillance technologies might be employed in hospitals or other health-care facilities for many different purposes, some of which will be more controversial than others.
