Media Law - Lecture 5. Confidentiality.

Yesterday's Media Law lecture was about confidentiality (basically 'secrets') and privacy.

Section 8 of the Human Rights Act is based on the EU Human Rights Convention.  Section 8 entitles people to have 'enjoyment of a normal family life' - breaches of this can include: taking images of you on your private land (from a long distance) and riding on a motorbike taking pictures of you in your car etc etc...

Section 8 also means that TV programmes can no longer use 'general views' or 'GVs' of the general public to pad out the programme, (my condolences go out to 'The One Show') because you can sue if you are shown in one of these GVs because there is a very high chance that the programme makers/companies wouldn't have asked permission from every single person shown in the shot - this would be almost impossible anyway!

There are 3 categories that confidentiality laws cover: 

Commercial: This covers business to business transactions and 'dealings', investigative reporting and 'solid' news reporting.

State: This is quite an important one as it covers the Official Secrets Act, which all civil servants have to sign, breaching this can result in a 10 year jail sentence and the book being thrown at you - very hard.

Private: Very important for journalists, it covers Section 8 of the Human Rights Act, which gives people the right to have a normal family life and to not have that disrupted.


Confidentiality (in a bit more detail).

Due to me having the right of confidentiality whilst with a doctor, I can tell him/her whatever I like about all the bad things that I have done because he/she has to keep in line with 'patient confidentiality' and is also in a major position of trust, this also applies to Catholic confessions.  You can tell the priest everything about the crimes you have committed and he won't tell tales on you because...you are covered by confidentiality.

This does not apply to University lecturers, if I tell Chris or Brian about all the crimes I have committed, then they have no obligation to keep that private.

Another big point about confidentiality also crosses over with defamation.  The 4 points to prove whether a statement is defamatory or not also apply in confidentiality BUT whereas in defamation, only 1 of the 4 points has to be proved to 'tend to', confidentiality requires all 4 points to be proved.

With confidentiality, you also have to prove that you were harmed, unlike in defamation where you just have to show that the statement 'tends to' harm you.  A person is in breach of confidence (if someone passes on information which:

1: has the necessary 'quality of confidence' - the information must be important and not already known.

AND

2: it was provided in circumstances 'imposing an obligation' - this means that a reasonable person would think that it would be kept secret e.g. a one on one consultation with someone like a doctor.

AND

3: there was no permission from the person to pass on the information

AND

4: 'detriment' - this is likely to be caused by the person who gave in the information.  The person who's secret is it must prove that it will hurt them in some way e.g. being sacked (due to what the secret reveals)


The Princess Caroline case: Princess Caroline expected that she would have privacy under Section 8, she sued magazines for printing pictures of her in a restaurant with a male friend - these pictures were taken at long distance.  She was sat right at the back of the restaurant, so she obviously didn't want to be seen! 

A publication can be sued if pictures are published without consent.  However, taking pictures can come at a high price, 'Hello!' and 'OK!' magazines sometimes have bidding wars with each other to get the rights to print pictures (almost all of the time the pictures are of celebrity weddings!).  Talking of celeb mags...

The Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas wedding case: CZJ and Michael Douglas sued 'Hello!' magazine in 2003 for printing pictures that 'OK!' magazine had the exclusive rights to publish.  'OK!' got over £1 million in damages from 'Hello!' and Cathy Zeta Jones and Mickey Douglas were only awarded just over £14,000.  Not bad money for looking at 'Hello!' magazine, I might just try that... (but of course I'm a student, so I can't afford luxuries) :)  And why would anyone want to buy 'Hello!' or 'OK!'?

Another major case involved the journalist Bill Goodwin.  He leaked confidential information whilst reporting for 'The Engineer' magazine and was ordered to disclose his source - not sauce.  He refused to do so and was fined, he kept refusing to disclose the source and kept getting fined.  He then went to the senior law lords to get the ruling overturned, it was refused.  He then went to the EU Court of Human Rights and won his case.  He must have been desperate to keep the source undisclosed!

Disclosing a source is important for a journalist because the security/safety of the source can't be guaranteed.  This can also impact on other people disclosing information that could be in the public interest, they may fear disclosing it to a journalist because of the potential consequences.


Wow, this has taken me longer than expected...

TB 2011