Category Archives: Defamation and Privacy
Róisín Costello, ‘The Test in Kelly v Hennessy and Article 82(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation’
ABSTRACT In this article, I examine the test for recovery of non-material damages in Irish law. I argue that the existing tortious test for the recovery of such damages, established in Kelly v Hennessy, is applicable to such claims. However, it is also argued that several recent decisions have failed to engage, or engage fully, […]
Michael Birnhack, ‘In Defense of Privacy-as-Control (Properly Understood)’
ABSTRACT Privacy-as-control (‘PaC’) is one of the dominant conceptions of privacy. PaC means that each person should be able to decide for themselves whether to disclose personal data to another person, company, or the state, when, how, and under which conditions. PaC is translated into operational mechanisms, namely Fair Information practices (FIPs). In practice, we […]
Iain Field, ‘Uncommon And Unordinary: An Australian Perspective on the Fearn Decision’
ABSTRACT The decision of the United Kingdom Supreme Court in Fearn v Board of Trustees of The Tate Gallery is significant for various reasons. Of particular concern for some is the Court’s unanimous agreement that ‘intense visual intrusion into someone’s domestic property is capable of amounting to a [private] nuisance’. But the judgment is also […]
Paula Giliker, ‘Protecting Privacy through the Tort of Private Nuisance: Fearn v Tate Gallery in the UK Supreme Court’
ABSTRACT This article examines the UK Supreme Court’s decision in Tate Gallery from the perspective of privacy protection. It asks the question: why did the Supreme Court deal with the case as one of private nuisance when the Court of Appeal determined the real issue to be invasion of privacy? In tracing the case from […]
Max Helveston, ‘Reining in Commercial Exploitation of Consumer Data’
ABSTRACT The collection and use of consumer data by commercial entities has quickly transitioned from being an obscure topic to a headlining issue in leading media outlets. The burgeoning societal awareness of how digital devices are collecting and transmitting data about individuals has led to growing concerns about how this information is being used, stored, […]
Binns and Edwards, ‘Reputation Management in the ChatGPT Era’
ABSTRACT Generative AI systems often generate outputs about real people, even when not explicitly prompted to do so, leading to significant reputational and privacy harms, especially when sensitive, misleading, or false. This paper considers what legal tools currently exist to protect such individuals, with a particular focus on defamation and data protection law. We explore […]
‘Top 10 Defamation Cases of 2024: a selection’
Inforrm reported on a large number of defamation cases from around the world in 2024. Following a now established tradition, with our widely read posts on 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 defamation cases, we present our selection of legally and factually interesting cases from England, Australia, New Zealand and Canada from the […]
Ezra Lim, ‘Defamation by Hyperlinks – Back to Basics?’
ABSTRACT The speed at which hyperlinks enable information to be disseminated poses challenges to legal regulation. In particular, major concerns arise over whether adherence to the Traditional Publication Rule would result in widespread liability. This paper explores how various jurisdictions have opted to tackle the issue of defamation via hyperlinks and highlights a shift towards […]
Meg Jones, ‘The Character of Consent: The History of Cookies and The Future of Technology Policy’
ABSTRACT The rich, untold origin story of the ubiquitous web cookie – what’s wrong with it, why it’s being retired, and how we can do better. Consent pop-ups continually ask us to download cookies to our computers, but is this all-too-familiar form of privacy protection effective? No, Meg Leta Jones explains in The Character of […]
Gareth Davies, ‘Consent or Pay: Transforming Internet Users from Products into Customers’
ABSTRACT The recognition in Meta that consent-or-pay models for online services are in principle lawful has caused concern that data protection and privacy are now only available to those who pay, whereas they should be fundamental rights. There is considerable attachment among lawyers to the pre-Meta idea that whether not personal data is provided should […]