Description

The media hysteria generated by the Leveson Inquiry Report raises important questions about the delicate balance between privacy and freedom of expression, and the efficacy of press self-regulation. The English law, since the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998, has undergone a tectonic shift in its protection of ‘private life’ under Article 8 of the ECHR, now assimilated into domestic law. But the recognition by the House of Lords of the ‘right of personal privacy’ invites controversy and ambiguity. The lecture traces this unhappy development, suggesting that in balancing privacy and free speech, the law ought to avoid the vagueness and promiscuous use of the concept of privacy by acknowledging that the protection of ‘personal information’ lies at the heart of our anxieties about its fragility, both online and off. This – and several other advances – are best achieved, it will be argued, by clearly drafted legislation.

About The Speaker

Raymond Wacks is Emeritus Professor of Law and Legal Theory, University of Hong Kong, and former Head of the Department of Law. He has published more than twenty books; his major works in the field of privacy are The Protection of Privacy (Sweet & Maxwell, 1980), the first book on the subject in England; Personal Information: Privacy and the Law (Oxford University Press, 1989); Privacy, a twovolume collection of essays (Dartmouth & NYU Press, 1993); Privacy and Press Freedom (Blackstone, 1995); and most recently, Privacy and Media Freedom (OUP, 2013). The third edition of his Understanding Jurisprudence: An Introduction to Legal Theory was published by OUP in 2012 which also published in 2006 Philosophy of Law: A Very Short Introduction. In 2008, his second book in this series, Law: A Very Short Introduction appeared, and in 2010, Privacy: A Very Short Introduction. His books have been translated into numerous languages including Greek, Chinese, Arabic, Japanese, and Georgian.