ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses UK privacy legislation and related legislation, including the law of confidence and its application to human rights, the development of data protection law and the development of a tort of privacy through the Human Rights Act. The only method of prior restraint, the prevention of publication or broadcast of a story, in the UK and most western democracies, is to go through the courts to prevent publication with an injunction. Many injunctions are ex-parte that is they are heard without the defendant being there. The newspaper or broadcaster will only learn of it when they are served with the order preventing publication. There are no laws providing a direct tort of privacy in the UK although there are a number of laws against privacy invasions such as harassment, trespass, phone hacking, computer hacking and data protection. The courts, however, have long accepted there needs to be some protection of privacy for citizens in their daily lives.
