Privacy

Dr Nicole Moreham's work on the law of privacy is funded by a five year Rutherford Discovery Fellowship (RDF) awarded by the Royal Society in 2011. Her principal project is a ground-breaking monograph on privacy protection in England and Wales.

Dr Moreham has recently completed one of the key outputs, submission of the manuscript for leading English treatise, The Law of Privacy and the Media (3ed) (OUP, 811pp). As well as writing nearly a third of the book’s chapters, Nicole is the principal editor of this work (working alongside co-editor, English High Court judge, Sir Mark Warby). Together, they lead a team of 17 English barristers and judges, and another nine foreign law contributors. The book covers all aspects of the English law of privacy as it affects ‘new’ and traditional media, including the misuse of private information action, breach of confidence, harassment, intrusion, data protection, copyright, regulatory codes, and procedure. Its main focus is the law of England and Wales but it also contains sections on New Zealand, Australian, Canadian, US, South African, French and German law and on the protection of privacy in international instruments. 

Dr Moreham is now focusing on her monograph on the English privacy tort. This book is about how courts should translate the opaque, but increasingly important, concept of privacy into a workable common law action. Although grounded in privacy theory, it will provide practical answers to difficult privacy questions: what is the nature of the privacy interest, how do we ascertain whether something is private, how do we weigh privacy against competing interests, and what is the nature of privacy harms? The aim is to devise principles which will apply, not just in the context of English law of tort, but in all areas where courts, lawmakers and practitioners are grappling with privacy issues.

Work on this project will be undertaken in conjunction with a third – production of a book exploring the modern media phenomenon of ‘grief journalism’ (ie the proliferation of stories focusing on grieving relatives in coverage of disasters and tragedies). The book, which is being co-written with Faculty of Law colleague, Dr Yvette Tinsley, will draw on qualitative empirical work which they undertook in the aftermath of the Pike River mining disaster. Dr Moreham's RDF includes scholarship funding for students wishing complete an LLM by thesis on privacy law.