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Damages for unauthorised access to medical records

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Keith Mathieson

A judge has awarded £12,500 to a man whose pre-existing personality disorder was exacerbated after his partner accessed his medical records and challenged him about his mental illness. The woman obtained unauthorised access while employed as a nurse by Plymouth Hospital NHS Trust and it was ag... read more

Details of the new inquiry into press regulation and phone-hacking

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Keith Mathieson

It had been thought that the Prime Minister had pledged to set up two separate inquiries: one into phone-hacking and one into press regulation more generally. It now emerges that there is to be one inquiry split into two parts. The inquiry will be chaired by a Court of Appeal judge, Lord Justice L... read more

Phone hacking scandal reaches a new plane

Posted on July 06, 2011 by Keith Mathieson

If, as seems likely, it proves true that the News of the World did indeed hack into the voicemail messages of the abducted teenager Milly Dowler, the phone hacking saga moves onto an entirely new plane. This blog has previously argued that the fuss about phone-hacking has been overblown - it is pla... read more

Phone-hacking is not a hanging offence

Posted on April 15, 2011 by Keith Mathieson

In February Donald Trelford, the respected former editor of the Observer, wrote in the Independent that the phone-hacking saga was a case of "dog eats dog gone barking-mad". In his view, the agenda was driven by a combination of MPs and celebrities bent on revenge against the tabloid press, greedy ... read more

The "half-lives" of celebrities: a theory of phone-hacking

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Andrew Hobson

In today's Independent Dominic Lawson offers an interesting view on how phone-hacking was allowed to take hold at the News of the World. He attributes the practice to the "dehumanising process" whereby journalists cease to regard celebrities as "real" people, regarding them instead as "cut-outs" w... read more

Phone-hacking claims - a new legal pursuit

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Keith Mathieson

The pack of lawyers representing the alleged victims of phone hacking by the News of the World seems to grow on an almost weekly basis. The lawyer for Gordon Taylor, possibly the first person to get a settlement from the newspaper, seeks distinction as the person who “devised the ‘phone-hacking’ cl... read more

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RPC Privacy Law Articles

This blog features regular postings on developments in UK privacy law written by specialist lawyers at RPC. The postings are intended to keep RPC's Privacy Law Handbook (see below) as up-to-date as possible and while postings do refer readers to relevant sections of the book, we hope and intend that the blog will also be a useful source of current information to those without access to the book.