Privacy in Australia

The 'right to privacy' has evolved over the centuries to protect an individual's space and reputation. A major turning point came in Britain and Europe with the death of Princess Diana in Paris in 1997 after a car chase involving paparazzi. In 1998, the United Kingdom passed its Human Rights Act, which incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights into British Law, including a right to privacy.

There is no common law right to privacy in Australia but there are a number of laws that went part of the way to protecting the privacy of citizens. The Privacy Act 1988 confers a degree of enforcement power upon the Federal Court and Federal Magistrates Court to protect privacy but focuses o private information held by government departments and large corporations.

Australia Law Reform Commission recommends Australia should have a privacy law that identifies several types of invasions: interference with a person's home or family, subjecting someone to unauthorized surveillance, interference with an individual's correspondence private written or oral communication and disclosure of sensitive facts relating to an individual's private life. However, the courts would have to take into account whether the public interest in maintaining the claimant's privacy outweighed the public interest, including the interest of the public being informed about matters of public concern.

There are privacy related law in Australia. Australia's Press Council published 'Privacy Standards' which contain a series of guidelines for media organizations to help ensure that individual's privacy is respected. They cover topics as the collection of personal information, the use and disclosure of the personal information, the quality of information and the anonymity of sources.

There are other laws to protect privacy, such as trespass, nuisance, surveillance/listening devices and obscenity and indecency. With trespass, a journalist has no special rights to entry to someone else's property beyond the ordinary citizen. Every person who is in possession of premises has the right to refuse others entry to those premises. However, a journalist can use material that has resulted from trespassing but not from unlawful surveillance.

The area of nuisance is very limited under the law. It protects an occupiers use or enjoyment of their land form unreasonable interferences. The nuisance has to be persistent and annoying for it to be actionable. Constant systematic surveillance and continuos phone calls persisting despite request they cease could be deemed as a nuisance. However, courts judge the actual definition of what is deemed a nuisance.

The Federal and State Laws affect the use of surveillance and listening devices and place varying restrictions on the publication of report gained through the use of these devices. Under the Commonwealth Law it is an offense to intercept communication passing over a telecommunication system without the knowledge of the person making the communication. Using, publishing or retaining a record of information gained in this way is considered an offense as well. Each state and territories have also legislation prohibiting the recording of a private conversation without the consent of all parties to the conversation by someone who is not a party to the conversation.

Obscenity and indecency is as much an issue of public taste as it is privacy. The public test defines what is considered good or bad and what is right or wrong. The decision rest with the publisher and editor rather than the journalist. A range of provision apply to obscene or indecent material and each state and territory have laws restricting this kind of publication. The public does not always want to know about a celebrities private life.