Category: Privacy

We need a Privacy Bill, just not this one

| 1 Comment
| Freedom of Expression, Privacy

Image of Examiner op-edThe drumbeats for privacy legislation can once again be heard around Leinster House. I did a radio interview with Matt Cooper on Today FM’s The Last Word yesterday evening; and I have an op-ed about it in today’s Irish Examiner (.doc here):

Flawed privacy bill offers us no protection

… the bill is unnecessary to cover the publication of the topless photographs, as Irish law already provides a remedy. Worse, the bill goes too far in dealing with press invasions of privacy; and it fails to deal with many other important aspects of privacy. …

A privacy bill is necessary. However, the one being proposed by the minister is not it. It will need a lot of work if it is to protect our privacy properly.

Links: here are some links to the cases and materials to which I refer in the article:

The Privacy Bill, 2006 is here. An op-ed I wrote at the time is here.

The Minister’s Press Release is here.

I have blogged about the photograph of the GAA player, Sinnott v Carlow Nationalist, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The nursing home case is Cogley v RTÉ [2005] 4 IR 79, [2005] IEHC 180 (8 June 2005).…

Read More »

Shatter to revisit Privacy Bill over photos – The Irish Times

| No Comments
| Privacy

The Minister for Justice Alan Shatter is to revisit the Privacy Bill in the wake of the Irish Daily Star’s publication of topless photos of Kate Middleton.

In a statement this evening, Mr Shatter said: … “It is my intention to revisit the provisions of the Privacy Bill 2006 which was reinstated to the Seanad Order paper following the formation of the Government, to consider what changes should be made to it in the context of developments that have taken place since its first publication and to then progress its enactment,” …

via irishtimes.com

The Minister’s statement is here. I’m not surprised at this development. But it is unfortunate. The Bill is a good idea, but very flawed. It would have been better if the Minister had announced that, not only was he going to revive the Bill, but also that he would bring forward amendments to it, to address its flaws.

…

Read More »

The motes and beams of privacy

| 2 Comments
| Defamation, Press Council, Privacy

By way of a break from #CRC12, I’ve been musing since Wednesday about motes and beams. A quick online search confirmed to me that the phrase comes from the King James version of St Matthew’s Gospel (chapter 7, verse 3):

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

David Norris, via his presidential election websiteThe essence is that those who would judge or regulate others should look first to themselves. On Wednesday, when Senator David Norris (pictured left) introduced a Privacy Bill, 2012 into the Seanad, the debate focussed largely on media invasions of privacy, with little recognition of the massive privacy issues attendant upon the modern regulatory state and increasing law enforcement powers (to say nothing of widespread private surveillance or the aggregation of data by private corporations). All of the contributors to the debate were quick to behold the privacy mote in the eye of the media, and that they do not consider the privacy beam in their own eye: they are quick to criticise media invasions of privacy, but they are far slower to perceive the potential for the State’s invasion of its citizens’ privacy. Worse, it wasn’t even a particularly good debate.…

Read More »

Naked Law: Has the Faccenda Chicken come home to roost?

| No Comments
| General, Privacy

This made me wonder whether the notion of customer lists being protectable trade secrets is sustainable in the era of social media.  Will it seem quaint or Big Brotherish in the future that companies tried to “own” the social capital created by their employees?

via nakedlaw.com

This is an interesting question. The title of the post refers to Faccenda Chicken Ltd v Fowler [1987] Ch 117, [1986] 1 All ER 617 (CA) (available here (.doc)).

…

Read More »

Privates on parade: privacy in public (again)

| 2 Comments
| Privacy

Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, wardrobe malfunction, via WikipediaIn a now-infamous wardrobe malfunction in the course of the half-time entertainment for Super Bowl XXXVIII (2004), during a duet between Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, Timberlake fleetingly exposed Jackson’s right breast, which was adorned with a large nipple shield (the pair are pictured left immediately after the incident). In an exciting game, the New England Patriots beat the Carolina Panthers 32-29, but Jackson got all of the post-game media exposure (sorry!). She insisted afterwards that Timberlake removed more clothing than he should have done and that it was not her intention that it go as far as it did; but, in the face of public outrage, the Federal Communications Commission condemned it as a stunt, and the matter has even – briefly – reached the US Supreme Court (pdf).

Other wardrobe malfunctions can be even more embarassing. In Sinnott v Carlow Nationalist (already discussed on this blog here, here, here, here, here, and here), the Circuit Court and the High Court held that the publication by the Carlow Nationalist newspaper of a photograph of Mr Sinnott involved in a football match in which his private parts were exposed constituted an invasion of his privacy.…

Read More »

Media Law Prof Blog: Photographs and Privacy

| No Comments
| General, Privacy
David Rolph, University of Sydney Faculty of Law, is publishing Looking Again at Photographs and Privacy: Theoretical Perspectives on Law’s Treatment of Photographs as Invasions of Privacy in Law, Culture, and Visual Studies (A. Wagner and R. Sherwin eds.; Ashgate Publishing, 2011). Here is the abstract.

Courts in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand are increasingly entertaining claims for invasions of privacy. Many of these cases involve the publication of photographs by a media outlet. In the United Kingdom in particular, the means of protecting personal privacy has been the adaptation of the existing, information-based cause of action for breach of confidence. This has entailed treating photographs as a form of information. This essay analyses the imposition of liability for the publication of intrusive photographs, as it is developing in the United Kingdom, using Campbell v MGN Ltd [2004] 2 AC 459 and Douglas v Hello! Ltd [2008] 1 AC 1 as case-studies. It applies critical insights from leading theorists on photography, such as Barthes, Berger and Sontag, to suggest that the judicial treatment of photography is underdeveloped.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.
via lawprofessors.typepad.com
…

Read More »

UK Plans to Reduce DNA Databases – Human Rights in Ireland

| No Comments
| General, Privacy

Under changes announced last Friday (11th), DNA profiles and fingerprints taken from people who have been arrested but never charged or convicted of a crime will be destroyed. Previously, police had powers to keep these records indefinitely. This legislation draws heavily on the recommendations made by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics in the 2007 report ‘The forensic use of bioinformation: ethical issues’ which had suggested that the law in England, Wales and Northern Ireland should be brought into line with Scotland, where other than in exceptional cases, DNA profiles and biological samples from a person are kept permanently on record only if they have been convicted of a recordable offence.

via humanrights.ie

This post, by David O’Dwyer, doctoral student at the Centre for Criminal Justice at the University of Limerick, updates my post on Retention of DNA, and the effect of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights. There is a good piece in the Guardian about the issue: DNA profiles to be deleted from police database. And Cian Murphy has an excellent discussion of the Bill in which the DNA proposals are to be found: Protection of Freedoms Bill Published. Magna Carta Unfazed.

…

Read More »

© cearta.ie 2025. Powered by WordPress