Intrusion Into Physical Privacy

Abstract

It is possible to breach a person’s privacy without disseminating any information about him or her. Surreptitiously videoing people in their homes or offices, relentlessly pursuing them for an interview or photograph, hacking their voicemail messages, or using a bugging device to record their conversations all interfere with this non-informational aspect of their privacy.

The View from the Top: Visual Intrusion as Nuisance in Fearn v Tate Gallery

“…104 Nor, unlike other jurisdictions, is there a specific tort of 'intrusion into a person's seclusion' 105 which squarely protects against interferences with a person's 'physical privacy' (ie circumstances where a claimant is watched, listened to, or otherwise sensed without their authorisation). 106 The challenge for the residents was therefore to frame their claim within an existing legal action. One option in this regard, consistent with recent academic writing on physical privacy, would have been to argue that misuse of private information (the tort which English courts developed from breach of confidence which chiefly protects informational privacy 107 ) is now sufficiently capacious to protect against visual intrusions.…”