Media Law #5 - Confidentiality

This is a secret, by no means, should you tell anyone this: I am a massive geek. Please don't tell anyone, that information is confidential and if it does get out my social standing will be significantly lowered and people would expect me to shop in Forbidden Planet. I will be shunned. I trust you and I can rely on you to keep this secret, but you can tell people you  trust...

The above is an absolutely, utterly dreadful form of confidentiality. First off, the 'secret' in question is, for lack of a better turn of phrase: a little bit shit. Nobody cares that I'm a geek and those that do are likely to be so confounded by my use of sophisticated language that they'll smash their heads into trees frustration. In essense, the basis of the secret isn't quality material; I haven't killed anyone, nor have I stomped on any cats. It lacks 'Quality of Confidence.'

This secret also falls short because I don't know who you, the reader, are. You could be anyone. For that reason, this secret lacks 'Circumstances Imposing an Obligation.' If I were to tell a secret to the doctor, say for example, that I have a really bad case of the poops, they would be obliged not to tell anyone as I have asked them to keep it confidential. You, on the other hand, could be anyone, so how could I trust you with such a serious secret when I don't even know who you are? A person has the right to feel that a doctor can keep their personal details confidential.

I'll even lose my defence that there was 'No permission to pass on the information.' How? I hear you scream! Well, the reason is incredibly simple. I said that you cannot pass on the secret unless it's too someone that you trust. What's the point in that secret then? I've told you, an anonymous person that I can't see, and I now expect you, the anonymous person that I can't see, to only tell people that you can trust. If I can't see you and trust you, how can I trust the person who you can trust?

Frankly, there is no 'Detriment' to this secret what-so-ever. I don't care what your opinions are, but shopping in Forbidden Planet is not THAT big of a social disaster. Admittedly, it's close, but in reality it's nothing. I have friends who shop there. They're geeks. They're proud of it. I think. So no harm is caused to me by you knowing that I'm a geek. If I was ill with a lethal stream of Otter Flu and my doctor told everyone, I would be shunned and avoided. However, this would be for the good of society; one person contracting it is awful but not the end of the world, but if I passed it on to someone else and so on and so forth it would become a pandemic. For detriment to come into play I'd have to prove that I've been harmed in some way by the spread of the secret.


The confidentiality law is based on Section 8 of the Human Rights Act, which in turn, is based on the European Convention of Human Rights. This act states that everyone is entitled to privacy in their personal life, including both family time and extramarital affairs. Permission is needed if the press want photos of celebrities with their families or having alone time - this also spreads to reporting and film. General View shots of crowds of people are now banned if the person can be identified and no permission has been given to use their likeness.


A very good example of a case involving a celebrity focuses on Princess Caroline of Monaco who accused the paparazzi of breaching Section 8. They were accused of not letting her have a personal life and took photos of her doing her day-to-day activities such as taking her children to school and riding her bike. An example of one of the photos taken is of her deep inside a restaurant. She clearly hid herself away because she did not want to be spotted. When the photo was published she explained this to the judge and stated that she expects privacy in a restaurant, who subsequently fined the publication responsible. Another example is a photo of her relaxing with her friends in an outdoors cafe in France. Again, the Princess argued that her privacy was imposed on and the judge came to the same conclusion. Later, the judge ruled that there would be no pictures taken of the Princess "unless she is engaged in public activity." This is where she would typically be in the spotlight whilst attending to her duties.


Finally, there are two major areas of concern where confidentiality is involved:

• Commercial Secrets: Spreading trade secrets can lead to a breach of common law. A boss has the right to feel that their employees can be spoken to confidentially. If they tell one that they're increasing prices next week and the employee spreads it, there is a good chance that the employer could lose money as everyone rushes to buy the products at the cheaper price.
• State Secrets: State secrets are those that can lead to enemies gaining harmful information. This can include the positions of armies and spies, among other security threatening situations. In response to this the Official Secrets Act was passed. Part one deals with potentially security threatening information, whereas part two is focussed on government bodies such as the Inland Revenue and the Royal Mail.