Privacy, defamation and ZXC v Bloomberg

The significance of the Supreme Court decision in ZXC v Bloomberg extends well beyond its recognition of the ‘starting point’ that a person who is subject to police investigation has a reasonable expectation of privacy in respect of information about that investigation up to the point of charge. The Supreme Court’s willingness to use the privacy tort to protect a claimant’s reputational interests (based in large part on European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence) also has significant implications for the relationship between privacy and defamation. Indeed, it moves the privacy tort significantly into defamation’s domain. This explains the potential implications of that shift and shows how the measure’s like new defence foreseeable loss of reputation (recognised in ZXC itself) can help preserve the preserve essential protections for publication of reputationally damaging allegations which are true.