In May this year, by a majority of 3:2, the House of Lords handed down its decision in the long-running legal battle between weekly celebrity magazines OK! and Hello! concerning the Zeta-Jones/Douglas wedding photos. According to the leading judgment of Lord Hoffman, the fact that OK! paid £1m for the confidentiality of any wedding photos was an actionable right of confidentiality, which Hello! had breached.
As the delicate balancing act of public versus private interest is becoming increasingly more difficult, Ruth Hoy, intellectual property lawyer at DLA Piper, has warned that the definition of privacy is still a developing area of the law, and that reconciling the interests of freedom of expression and confidentiality will be a key conundrum for UK courts.
“The UK is moving towards tighter privacy protection more akin to the mature practices of the rest of the Europe,” she said. “However, the law itself lacks objective definition. Future challenges for the courts will be the protection of false information and the inter-relationship between privacy law and defamation.
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