On January 9, I had some concerns about a U.K. injunction that blocked The Sun from publishing pictures of actress Kate Winslet’s husband. Now Mr. Justice Briggs’ written judgement is available online. The ruling provides a nice recap of the multi-prong test being applied by the court in trying to determine, and balance, an individual’s Article 8 rights against the press’s Article 10 rights.
One of the points that I thought Justice Briggs made well concerned what should happen when material has already been disclosed on Facebook. In this case, he held that even though the material had been viewed by people, it was not so widely available as to make it comparable to a situation in which commercial trade secrets, once widely disclosed, have lost their confidential nature. Additional reproduction or dissemination of photos to new groups would provide new opportunities for harm or embarrassment to the individual and so preventing such future publication is appropriate when publication of the pictures is only to titillate the public or give them a chance to snigger at someone’s immature behavior.
See what you think of the ruling.