Privacy cases double

Privacy laws have become more widely used, with the number of reported privacy cases reaching the courts doubling in the last five years.

The courts heard 56 privacy cases in the last year, up from 28 five years ago. According to Thomson Reuters, which gathered the statistics, a high proportion of the cases this year were made against public bodies, with a particular concentration of cases made against the police. These included stop and search complaints as well as concerns over data held by the police.

Jonathon Cooper, of Doughty Street Chambers, says: “Growth in privacy law has partly been a response to the explosion of personal data held on the internet and the data collected and shared between government departments. Any attempt to dismantle the UK’s human rights system, including the right to privacy, would be a big backwards step for the freedom of UK citizens.”