Is personal privacy a lost cause?
THE answer is not as far as the law is concerned. Legislators and courts are tackling privacy issues with vigour. Yet the unstoppable advances in technology, media and communications which stir up so much social agitation about privacy also highlight the law's limitations.
The law has recognised that every man's home is his castle, a refuge from the world, since the 1600s. Step outside into the public arena and everything changes, the more so as the world goes virtual. Celebrities may target media entities, persuade courts that there is a human right to privacy even in public, get injunctions or damages and large awards of legal costs. But who can stop a fan with a mobile phone?
The law has protected confidences ever since Prince Albert sued to protect Queen Victoria's family etchings. Fast forward more than 100 years and now it is "relationship" videos or photographs that people want to keep private, from their own circle or from magazines, websites, or YouTube.
