DATA PROTECTION LAW — SWEDEN: BALANCING DATA PROTECTION AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN THE CONTEXT OF WEBSITE PUBLISHING — RECENT SWEDISH CASE LAW

Abstract

The Swedish Supreme Court (Högsta domstolen) has recently handed down a ground-breaking judgment concerned with the difficult balance between the interests in privacy and data protection on the one hand and freedom of expression on the other, in the context of website publishing. 1 1 Case B 293-00, judgment of 12 June 2001. The judgment (in Swedish) is available at: http://www.bankrattsforeningen.org.se/hddomslut.html (last visited 21.8.2001). The judgment is especially noteworthy for casting light on the extent to which the 1995 European Community (EC) Directive on data protection, 2 2 Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (OJ No L 281, 23.11.1995, 31) — hereinafter termed ‘EC Directive’. together with national European legislation implementing the Directive, may apply to certain forms of online ‘journalistic’ activity. It could also cast light on the scope of the exemption for journalism in s 7B(4) of Australia’s Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).