Privacy

There has been considerable debate in recent years over whether there is a law of privacy which may inhibit the media’s right to freedom of expression in New Zealand. Most privacy issues involving the media have been the subject of cases taken to and ruled on by the BSA.

However, one major legal case has made the position clearer.

In 2003, broadcaster Mike Hosking and his wife Marie took legal action to try to prevent the publication of photographs of their twin daughters, then aged 18 months, which had been taken in a public place in a busy shopping mall. The case went to the Court of Appeal, which ruled that the photographs could be published. But a majority judgment (3:2) established that a law of privacy did exist in New Zealand. There are two fundamental requirements:

• The existence of facts in respect of which there is a reasonable expectation of privacy
• Publicity given to those facts would be considered highly offensive to a reasonable person.

The two judges in the minority did not accept that a law of privacy exists in New Zealand and that Parliament should legislate if it were thought necessary. The Hosking judgment has yet to be tested by further cases.