Kate Wilson and Rupert Elliott explain why claims for misuse of private information have never been so fashionable
December proved a busy time in the evolving law of privacy, with two Court of Appeal decisions, McKennitt v Ash [2006] EWCA Civ 1714, [2006] All ER (D) 200 (Dec) and Prince of Wales v Associated Newspapers [2006] EWCA Civ 1776, [2006] All ER (D) 335 (Dec), and an interim injunction granted to protect a celebrity adulterer, CC v AB [2006] EWHC 3083 (QB), [2006] All ER (D) 39 (Dec).
The approach to determining claims for privacy or misuse of private information is now well-established as a two-stage process, incorporating the jurisprudence of Arts 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention). First the claimant must show that he has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the information concerned, Campbell v MGN [2004] UKHL 22, [2004] 2 AC 457 (para 21). Once this threshold is crossed, the parties’ competing Art 8 and 10 rights must be weighed in the ‘ultimate balancing exercise’. This considers the importance
