Bloomberg LP v ZXC [2022] UKSC 5 (16 February 2022)
Citation:Bloomberg LP v ZXC [2022] UKSC 5 (16 February 2022)
Subjects invoked: 37. Privacy
Rule of thumb: If a person is voluntarily co-operating with a police investigation, and this is affirmed to be sensitive & private, do the media have the right to publish this? No, they do not – in sensitive Police investigations the fact that a person has not been charged and is co-operating voluntarily this is private and cannot be published. .
Background facts:
This was a very simple case factually. The material facts were that ZXC was under investigation by the Police for potentially committing a crime - ZXC was informed in a letter that the investigation would be private and so ZXC co-operated. Bloomberg published an article stating that ZXC was under criminal investigation by the Police. After police investigation ZXC was not charged, and ZXC felt aggrieved about him being projected the world in this way as a police suspect in what he thought was a private police investigation. ZXC objected to Bloomberg being allowed to publish an article stating that he was under criminal investigation.
ZXC argued that someone being under investigation by police was a private and confidential matter, and that Bloomberg had violated these rights in publishing this information, meaning they owed him £25,000 in damages.Bloomberg argued that someone being under police investigation was a private matter but not an inherently confidential one, and this was information they were allowed to publish. Bloomberg further argued that their article was in the public interest, what they wrote was true, respected the privacy of ZXC, and they had a right to publish it in the manner they did – they argued that they did not break any privacy laws.
Judgment:
The Court partially upheld the arguments of ZXC in this particular scenario. Police investigations are not inherently confidential matters, but they are private, meaning essentially that if someone is under criminal investigation by Police then in some scenarios this will be a private matter that media cannot report on, particularly if the Police declare this to be appropriate in the circumstances of the case. Police action against a person only becomes a categorically reportable matter if the person under investigation is actually charged by Police. ZXC was entitled to £25,000 in damages from Bloomberg for breaching his privacy rights.
Ratio-decidendi:
‘A determination as to whether there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in the relevant information is a fact-specific enquiry which requires the evaluation of all circumstances in the individual case… Information may be private but not confidential, or confidential but not private. To prove that information is private it is not necessary to show that it is confidential. Often, however, confidentiality and privacy will overlap and confidentiality may well be relevant to whether there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. In particular, if information is confidential that is likely to support the reasonableness of an expectation of privacy… In the present case, there was a general public interest in the observance of the duties of confidence and a specific public interest in maintaining the confidence of the Letter of Request so as not to prejudice the criminal investigation. As was stated in the Letter of Request, disclosure of its contents “will pose a material risk of prejudice to a criminal investigation”. As a suspect in the investigation, the claimant also had a particular interest in avoiding prejudice to, and maintaining the fairness and integrity of, that investigation’, Lord Hamblen at 144-154
Warning: This is not professional legal advice. This is not professional legal education advice. Please obtain professional guidance before embarking on any legal course of action. This is just an interpretation of a Judgment by persons of legal insight & varying levels of legal specialism, experience & expertise. Please read the Judgment yourself and form your own interpretation of it with professional assistance.