A pre publication copy of a book chapter I’ve written for Prof Lilian Edwards upcoming book, Law, Policy and the Internet, is now available online at SSRN.

“Privacy and Freedom of the Press from 2004-2015: From Campbell to Leveson”

The chapter documents the developments in the English law of breach of confidence since the seminal Campbell v MGN case in 2004. In particular, we document the growth of the new action of ‘misuse of private information’. We conduct a largely doctrinal analysis of the case law by consolidating the complex, fragmented domain of principles and tests established by the courts. We situate these within the broader concerns around regulation of the UK print press, how this system is changing in light of the Leveson Inquiry, European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) jurisprudence and the new Royal Charter on Self Regulation of the Press. We also look at the impact of new technologies on regulation of collection and distribution of the news. We briefly consider two examples, namely social media and super-injunctions, and use of drones to collect news.