The defence of public interest and the intrusion of privacy

Abstract

The article examines the relationship between the public interest and the right to privacy, with the focus on journalistic practice and new values, and the general growth of social surveillance. The article then draws on a series of in-depth interviews with UK media regulators and media interest groups. These were in turn followed by a series of focus groups, leading to the development of a UK national sample survey. The research offers the basis for a more complex analysis of the factors involved in judging the relative rights of the media to intrude and individuals’ rights to be protected from intrusion. Central to this analysis is the development of a new concept - ‘social importance’. Unlike the established concept of ‘public interest’, social importance is readily operationizable, scalable in terms of intensity, in its potential applications.