*/
Legislation is a “crude and inflexible tool” as far as protecting rights of privacy is concerned, Desmond Browne QC has warned.
Addressing a Conservative Party Conference fringe meeting, the Chairman of the Bar Council looked at the way the courts and Parliament have handled the balance between privacy rights and freedom of expression.
“I believe that the incremental development of the law by the judges has proved to be infinitely preferable to the big bang of legislation,” he said. “I think that the case law, European and domestic, which lays down that neither the right to privacy nor that to freedom of expression has presumptive pre-eminence over the other is the right approach.”
He posed the question of how the right to privacy from intrusion by our neighbours and the media is to be reconciled with the right to privacy from state surveillance. “A quarter of a century after 1984, the common law principles which govern protection of our privacy from intrusion by the media are just as relevant, indeed almost certainly more so, in relation to surveillance by the state,” he said.
“Here Parliament has intervened with legislation such as the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, but there is much in the view that such legislation has proved ineffective, and occasionally counter-productive, in the halt of Big Brother’s march. No wonder that back in 2004 the then Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, warned against our sleep-walking into ‘a surveillance society’.”
Desmond Browne was speaking at a fringe panel session, entitled “The Database State: Privacy under Threat?”
He posed the question of how the right to privacy from intrusion by our neighbours and the media is to be reconciled with the right to privacy from state surveillance. “A quarter of a century after 1984, the common law principles which govern protection of our privacy from intrusion by the media are just as relevant, indeed almost certainly more so, in relation to surveillance by the state,” he said.
“Here Parliament has intervened with legislation such as the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, but there is much in the view that such legislation has proved ineffective, and occasionally counter-productive, in the halt of Big Brother’s march. No wonder that back in 2004 the then Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, warned against our sleep-walking into ‘a surveillance society’.”
Desmond Browne was speaking at a fringe panel session, entitled “The Database State: Privacy under Threat?”
Legislation is a “crude and inflexible tool” as far as protecting rights of privacy is concerned, Desmond Browne QC has warned.
Addressing a Conservative Party Conference fringe meeting, the Chairman of the Bar Council looked at the way the courts and Parliament have handled the balance between privacy rights and freedom of expression.
“I believe that the incremental development of the law by the judges has proved to be infinitely preferable to the big bang of legislation,” he said. “I think that the case law, European and domestic, which lays down that neither the right to privacy nor that to freedom of expression has presumptive pre-eminence over the other is the right approach.”
Justice system requires urgent attention and next steps on the Harman Review
Q&A with Tim Lynch of Jordan Lynch Private Finance
By Marie Law, Director of Toxicology at AlphaBiolabs
By Louise Crush of Westgate Wealth Management
Why Virtual Assistants Can Meet the Legal Profession’s Exacting Standards
Despite increased awareness, why are AI hallucinations continuing to infiltrate court cases at an alarming rate? Matthew Lee investigates
Many disabled barristers face entrenched obstacles to KC appointment – both procedural and systemic, writes Diego F Soto-Miranda
The proscribing of Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act is an assault on the English language and on civil liberties, argues Paul Harris SC, founder of the Bar Human Rights Committee
For over three decades, the Bar Mock Trial Competition has boosted the skills, knowledge and confidence of tens of thousands of state school students – as sixth-form teacher Conor Duffy and Young Citizens’ Akasa Pradhan report
Suzie Miller’s latest play puts the legal system centre stage once more. Will it galvanise change? asks Rehna Azim
.tmb-carlisting.png?sfvrsn=c60e2f3d_1){kind=logo}
