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News (Media Awareness Project) - UK: 'Sensitive Personal Details' Published
Title:UK: 'Sensitive Personal Details' Published
Published On:2002-03-28
Source:Times, The (UK)
Fetched On:2008-01-24 14:17:08
'SENSITIVE PERSONAL DETAILS' PUBLISHED

SIR MICHAEL MORLAND said that Naomi Campbell had established that she was
entitled to damages for both breach of confidentiality and under the Data
Protection Act. He said her attendance at Narcotics Anonymous had the
"necessary quality of confidence about them". "They (the details) were
obtained surreptitiously assisted by covert photography when Miss Campbell
was engaged deliberately "low key" and drably dressed in the private
activity of therapy.

". . . information clearly bore the badge of confidentiality and when
received by the defendants they, Mr Morgan and The Mirror journalists, were
clothed in conscience with the duty of confidentiality."

On the Data Protection Act, the judge said that the information as to the
nature of, and details of, the therapy that Campbell was receiving,
including the photographs with captions, was clearly related to her
physical or mental health or condition and was therefore "sensitive
personal data".

In his judgment, disclosure of details of her therapy was not in the
substantial public interest. Moreover the disclosure of that personal data
was not in connection with the commission of drug offences but Campbell's
efforts to avoid committing drug offences.

The judge said that inevitably a top fashion model such as Campbell would
be the subject of media interest. He assumed that she expected and, to a
degree, welcomed, some media attention and intrusion when she was engaged
in public promotions and appearances.

He said that Campbell had lied about her drug addiction in interviews. Her
assertions to him in evidence that a 1997 hospital visit in Gran Canaria
was caused by an allergic reaction rather than a drug overdose were
"deliberate lies".

The judge said: "Although many aspects of the private lives of celebrities
and public figures will inevitably enter the public domain, in my judgment
it does not follow that even with self-publicists every aspect and detail
of their private lives are legitimate quarry for the journalist."

To conform with the European Convention of Human Rights, the media should
respect information about the private lives of celebrities, certainly
"sensitive personal data", unless there is an overriding public interest to
publish.

"Clearly The Mirror was fully entitled to put the record straight and
publish that her denials of drug addiction were deliberately misleading."
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