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28 SAcLJ 1 (2016)

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                              Lecture

 SINGAPORE ACADEMY OF LAW ANNUAL LECTURE 2015 -
                    IS NOTHING SECRET?
        PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY, PRIVACY,
  FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AND WHISTLEBLOWING
                    IN THE INTERNET AGE

The Right Honourable the Lord NEUBERGER of Abbotsbury*
President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

I.      Introduction

1       It is a signal honour to be invited to give this lecture, especially
in Singapore's 50th anniversary year. Since 1965, Singapore has come an
impressively long way from being a little-known speck on the map at
the bottom of the Malaysian peninsula. You have a government, which,
according to the highly respected Economist magazine, hold[s] [itself] to
high standards, and you have become the world's only fully functioning
city state, with a diversified economy with a strong manufacturing base
as well as many service industries, low unemployment, and a structural
surplus [which represents] a higher proportion [of GDP] than any other
developed economy.'

2       I know from first-hand experience of the high quality of your
judges from their judgments which come to our attention in the UK
Supreme Court. We recently followed2 what we called an impressively
wide-ranging judgment3 given by your Chief Justice4 on the subject of
passing off (ie, marketing goods and services giving the impression that
they are someone else's). The appellant claimed that the reputation it

*   I should like to thank Hugh Cumber of 5 Stone Buildings Lincoln's Inn and
    Liu Zhao Xiang of Singapore for their invaluable assistance in preparing this talk.
    I should also express my debts to the editors of and contributors to Emerging
    Challenges in Privacy Law: Comparative Perspectives (Normann Witzleb et al eds)
    (Cambridge University Press, 2014), as well as to David Anderson QC for his
    report, A Question of Trust: Report of the Investigatory Powers Review (June 2015).
1   Simon Long, Special Report: Singapore The Singapore Exception The Economist
    (18 July 2015) at pp 2, 1, 7 and 7 respectively.
2   Starbucks (HK) Ltd v British Sky Broadcasting Group plc [2015] UKSC 31; [2015]
    1 WLR 2628.
3   Starbucks (HK) Ltd v British Sky Broadcasting Group plc [2015] UKSC 31; [2015]
    1 WLR 2628 at [45] and [66].
4   Staywell Hospitality Group Pty Ltd v Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc
    [2014] 1 SLR 911.


(2016) 28 SAcLJ


Annual Lecture 2015

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