There are two ways to view the issue of privacy as it applies to media law and regulation:
- There should be tougher, tighter restrictions on the media's ability to invade our privacy, as tabloid newspapers in particular persist in doing so on flimsy grounds
- We urgently need to liberalise privacy law in favour of the media, as it is becoming increasingly difficult for UK media to publish information about the rich and powerful (those with access to expensive lawyers)
As ever, there are overlapping issues with digitisation:
- UK-only privacy regulation/law is made absurd by the easy access to global online resources
- As most of us permit websites and apps to track huge amounts of personal information about us, we increasingly undermine the argument that we have a right to privacy
There are cases from the press, TV and film that we can consider, but there is a further point we swiftly encounter, for example through the Max Mosley case:
- Media regulation of single industries makes no sense, and is ineffective, when there is so much cross-media ownership
