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15 Int'l Legal Prac. 72 (1990)
The Calcutt Report of the Committee on Privacy and Related Matters

handle is hein.journals/ilp15 and id is 78 raw text is: MEDIA LAW The Calcutt Report of the Committee on Privacy and Related Matters Peter F Carter-Ruck Peter Carter-Ruck and Partners, London he report of the Committee appointed by the Home Secretary, in light uf public concern about intrusions into the private lives of individuals by certain sections of the press in England and Wales, has not been well received by the national, provincial and professional press in the United Kingdom. The terms of reference related both to England and Wales and to Scotland and, in examining privacy and related matters, were appointed to take into account existing remedies, including the law of defamation and breach of confidence. There were, it is considered, three reasons for the report receiving a mixed reception. First, whilst a number of countries have found no difficulty in developing and operating a law of infringement of privacy, for example in the United States since 1890 and in a number of European countries, facing up to its adoption in the United Kingdom has once more been evaded. This is notwithstanding that the United Kingdom is a party to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. No recommendation has been made which would give the private citizen a remedy for intrusion into a private domain, whether by actual trespass or by the use of photography or electronic means, other than by injunction, unless there has been publication 'obtained by means of any of the criminal offences proposed to be introduced'. This is notwithstanding the fact that within the last decade two Acts of Parliament have been successfully passed in at least two Commonwealth countries providing for such protection and no fewer than three draft privacy bills (never passed into law) have been presented to Parliament in England during the past 20 years. Secondly, great emphasis was placed by the Calcutt Committee upon setting up a Press Complaints Commission, coupled with a recommendation that the Press Council should be disbanded, as the alternative remedy to meet the problem of unwarranted press intrusion. Thirdly, it was recommended that, if the United Kingdom press did not put its house in order, the new criminal offences should be introduced (as if there were nor enough statutory restrictions on the press already). This led to such headlines as 'No censorship board needed' (Spectator), 'Editors beware the nascent lion' (The Times), 'Birth of Big Brother' (Daily Mail), 'Calcutt plan will lead to political control' (UK Press Gazette). The Law of Privacy which has evolved in the United States from the Warren and Brandeis article, 'The Right to Privacy', published in 1890, covers four different rights generally accepted to embrace the bounds of the concept of privacy both in the United States and in a number of European countries: (1) the right to prevent appropriation of one's likeness or name for commercial gain; (2) the right to prevent intrusion into one's private domain (to embrace temporary and quasi-permanent situations); (3) the right to prevent public disclosure of private facts; and (4) the right to prevent a person being placed in a false light to a public audience. These four rights under English law may be contended to be close to the boundaries respectively of the law of passing off, the law of trespass, the law of breach of confidence and the law of injurious falsehood. The Calcutt Committee has made no recommendation for alleviation by civil remedy of infringement of privacy by intrusion or abuse which could be said to bring the United Kingdom fully under the umbrella of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides that 'Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence' The Committee have recommended, however, that the criminal law should be extended by the creation of three new criminal offences: (1) The entering of private property without the consent of the lawful occupant with intent to obtain personal information with a view to its publication; (2) The placing of a surveillance device on private property without the consent of the lawful occupant with intent to obtain personal information with a view to its publication; and (3) The taking of photographs or recording the voice of an individual who is on private property without his INTERNATIONAL LEGAL PRACTITIONER September 1990

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