LAW ON PRIVACY THE YOUNGER COMMITTEE LACKED EVIDENCE OF HARM

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32975, 22 July 1972, Page 14

LAW ON PRIVACY THE YOUNGER COMMITTEE LACKED EVIDENCE OF HARM

(Reprinted by arrangement from the "Economist" )

Sir Kenneth Younger’s committee was set up in May, 1970. the inevitable result of a persistent dribble of demand for the creation of a right of privacy in English law. After all. Britain is a signatory to Uyli United Nations and Council of Europe instruments which incorporate it as an important human right. The 1960 s had seen the perennial appearance of private members’ bills designed to enshrine it in domestic law. of which the most attractive. Mr Brian Walden’s, was based on a widely quoted report by "Justice”; another stream of bills and public nervousness had begun with Mr Kenneth Baker’s Data Surveillance Bill in 1969: and the storage of information by the universities had come under fairly uproarious attack from the National Union of Students.

But, as the committee freely admits in its report, evidence that the lack of a right of privacy is creating a substantial public wrong is conspicuously lacking. The committee advertised nationally, asking for evidence. It received a mere 214 letters. It commissioned a special survey of public attitudes. The most frequently cited intrusion of privacy was that least susceptible to regulation by law: the actions of neighbours and friends. The committee has, rightly, come to the conclusion that the law on breach of confidence is imprecise and uncertain and in need of clarification: that, as it rightly says, is a matter for the Law Commission. The committee found that a number of remedies for the intrusion of privacy already exist, but that they are obscure and barely used. It also recommends—perhaps most importantly—that the use of a device for "surreptitious” surveillance should be made a criminal offence, and that the overt or surreptitious use of a device for surveillance should be actionable at civil law. The report is a little unclear on whether there should be punitive damages in such cases. But it makes the important point that an injunction could be taken out against such surveillance.

Computers The committee has, in all, some 40 specific recommendations to make. Private detectives should be licensed; this is absolutely right, and will be welcomed by the more reputable agencies. There should be a standing commission, or some such body, reviewing the developments in computer technology and the security measures that should accompany these; the committee frankly admits that it is somewhat out of its depth here, and yet realises that there are limits to the restrictions that can be imposed on computerusers in the name of some vague fear of the. centralisation of personal records. But it has still, probably, gone too far. A commission reporting annually to Parliament would be an ’ overlarge watchdog. The committee itself details a “code of practice” for computer users, which includes the principle that a person should be able to find out what information is stored that concerns him. But it is cautious about the creation of a “right of printout,” demanded by both “Justice” and the National Council for Civil Liberties. There must inevitably be limitations on any such right. But it is quite clear that there should be a new tort created to make the disclosure of information “unlawfully acquired” actionable; that, with the tightening up of the laws on breach of confidence, should do a great deal to defend firms against industrial espionage.

Bank clients

What of the ordinary individual’s fears for his privacy? The committee rightly recommended that banks should be very much stricter about the disclosure of their clients’ financial affairs. The majority of those interviewed were against identities being revealed in minor court cases, and the committee believes that a magistrate should be readier to ask that names should not be published if there is a risk of severe mental disturbance to the accused or his family: a recommendation that could only have arbitrary results. The committee also disapproves of identities being revealed in transplant cases, but here, sadly, has no recommendations to make. It does, however, want to strengthen the hand of the Press Council (incidentally believing that it should contain more "lay members”) and of the complaint review bodies of the 8.8. C. and the I.T.A. But so many other public institutions are excluded from its terms of reference.

The most important omission is government departments, which both Mr Maudling and his Labour predecessor excluded. That, of course, meant the Inland Revenue, the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys and the police — only the universities were scooped within the committee’s net. The Government will now look at the public sector itself and disgorge an all-embracing white paper, probably in the autumn. Half the letters received by the committee referred to matters outside its remit. These included intrusions of quite different kinds to computer leakage or bedbugging. It is worth remembering that to many people privacy means not so much doing their own thing secure that other people’s ears are not pressed to the keyhole as protecting their own ears from the assaults of other people’s voices and infernal machines.