Manchester United’s Ryan Giggs has been named in court for the first time as the Premier League footballer with a high-profile privacy injunction against the Sun. At a hearing at the high court today, Giggs agreed to lift the anonymity part of the injunction that he brought in April 2011 to prevent the tabloid from publishing claims he had an extra-marital affair with model Imogen Thomas. Yet the footballer was widely identified on Twitter and was named in the Commons by Lib Dem MP John Hemming last May. The footballer is trying to claim damages for distress from the Sun — alleging the paper breached his right to privacy — as well as for subsequent re-publication of information in other newspapers and online.
Footballer Rio Ferdinand has lost his privacy case over a “kiss and tell” story.
Ferdinand was taking action for “misuse of private information” following an article in the Sunday Mirror newspaper in April 2010, in which Carly Storey detailed their 13-year relationship for a sum of £16,000. Mr Justice Nicol said that the “balancing exercise favours the defendant’s right of freedom of expression over the claimant’s right of privacy.”
MGN said it was in the public interest to run the story, following Ferdinand’s replacement of John Terry as England skipper after stories of Terry’s alleged affairs were revealed.
Index on Censorship news editor Padraig Reidy said the free speech group was “greatly heartened by the judge’s recognition of free expression in his ruling”.
“Kiss and tell stories can be controversial,” he said. “But this is a case where public interest can be argued. Ferdinand’s claim that he was ‘embarrassed’ by the revelations is clearly not enough to restrict Ms Storey’s right to free speech”.
Facebook has agreed to work with the German government on a code of conduct aimed at privacy protection. The code, agreed at a meeting on Wednesday between German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich and Facebook’s director of policy in Europe, Richard Allen, will cover issues such as media literacy and data transmission in accordance with German law. The agreement follows discussions around Facebook’s adherence to German data protection laws. Last month, Thilo Weichert, a data protection commissioner in Northern Germany, claimed Facebook’s “Like” button violated German data protection laws.
Cooperation between the communications industry and governments creates unprecedented opportunities for surveillance. Let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past and allow companies to assume that users are uninterested in what happens to their data, urge Gus Hosein and Eric King of Privacy International (more…)
Journalists are being tarnished by the activities of professional privacy invaders. It is time they were renamed and shamed, argues Brian Cathcart (more…)
Max Mosley, Hugh Tomlinson QC, Suzanne Moore and David Price QC debated privacy, free speech and a feral press at Index on Censorship’s event at the London School of Economics on Tuesday evening, chaired by Index editor Jo Glanville. Reports of the event can be found at:
If you missed it or want to listen again, the video and audio are embedded below:
The debate was held to mark the launch of the latest issue of the Index on Censorship magazine Privacy is dead! Long live privacy, which includes an interview with Sir David Eady, the High Court judge by legal commentator and writer Joshua Rozenberg. The new issue is available now.
The British press loves to hate high court judge Sir David Eady for his judgments in privacy cases. He talks to Joshua Rozenberg about balancing rights (more…)
Journalists are being tarnished by the activities of professional privacy invaders. It is time they were renamed and shamed, argues Brian Cathcart
