Media, entertainment & sports law - Confidentiality and privacy

Confidentiality is an important and fascinating area of the law. The need to consider and apply the principles embodied in the traditional common law and equitable bases of claim arises in many contexts, and affects a wide field of personal, commercial and public sector activity. Following the coming into force of the Human Rights Act 1998, those principles have been given a new dimension by the need to reflect the values enshrined in Article 8 and Article 10 by absorbing the rights that those Articles protect into the cause of action for breach of confidence. So far as privacy is concerned, on the one hand the House of Lords has ruled that there is no common law tort of invasion of privacy, that the creation of such a tort would be a matter for legislation, and that the adoption of a right of privacy as a principle of law in itself is not necessary to comply with Article 8. On the other hand, the House of Lords has also ruled that the time has come to recognise that the wrong involved in the disclosure of facts in respect of which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy is better described as misuse of private information, and has made clear that the elements of this cause of action differ in significant respects from those of the traditional cause of action for breach of confidence. Members of chambers have played a central role in the development and clarification of these areas of law in recent years, have appeared in many of the leading reported cases, and have produced the leading textbook Information Rights.