“Sex, libels and video surveillance”

Lord Justice Sedley presents a lecture looking at the legal protection of personal privacy and personal reputation in the United Kingdom.

What I want to consider in this lecture is what is happening, and what needs to happen, to the legal protection of personal privacy and personal reputation in the United Kingdom, though the law I shall be talking about is the law of England and Wales and not - where it differs - of Scotland or Northern Ireland. I want to suggest, first, that privacy - prominently but not solely private sexual activity, which sells so many newspapers - is something which our law does not yet adequately protect; but secondly, that the law of libel in one important respect - cost - at present over-protects personal reputation at the expense of free speech.

I want to suggest that deterrence, which is a necessary part of the protection of reputation and arguably of privacy too, is best handled by an independent statutory regulator. Lastly I want to suggest that the electronic surveillance which is now an almost ubiquitous invasion of privacy is also a candidate for regulation rather than litigation.