Tag: British Royals

Royal family uses GDPR to protect their privacy

22. May 2019

Last week Prince Harry and Meghan Markle could claim another victory in the royal family’s never ending struggle with paparazzi photographers, securing “a substantial sum” in damages from an agency that released intimate photos of the Oxfordshire home the Duke and Duchess of Sussex rented to the media. In a statement, Splash News apologized for and acknowledged that this situation would represent “an error of judgement”.

The paparazzi agency “Splash News” took photos and footage of the couple’s former Cotswolds home — including their living room, dining area, and bedroom — using a helicopter and promptly sold to different news outlets. The lawyers of Prince Harry argued that this situation caused a breach of his right to privacy according to Art. 7 and 8 ECHR as well as a breach of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA).

Considering the strategy of the Duke’s lawyers, it looks like the royal family have found a potentially attractive alternative to claims of defamation of invasion of privacy. Since in contrast to such a claim, a claimant relying on data protection law neither needs to prove that a statement is at least defamatory and met the threshold for serious harm to reputation nor that the information is private.

However, the (new) European data protection legislation grants all data subjects, regardless of their position and/or fame, a right of respect for their privacy and family lives and protection of their personal data. In particular, the GDPR requires organisations, according to its Article 5, to handle personal data (such as names, pictures and stories relating to them) fairly and in a transparent manner while also using it for a legitimate purpose.

Moreover, when obtaining pictures and footage of an individual’s private or even the intimite sphere, the organization using such materials need a specific reason like some kind of contract, the individual’s consent or be able to argue that using this photos and footage was “in the public interest” or for a “legitimate interest”. As a contract and a consent can be excluded here, the only basis that might be considerd could be a public interest or a legitimate interest of the organization itself. Taking into account the means and the way how these photos and footage of the Duke and Dutchess were created, both of these interest cannot withstand the interest  in protecting the rights and freedom of individuals’ private and intimite sphere.

Referring to this case, it seems pretty likely that the European data protection regime changed the way in how celebrities and the courts enforce the heavy-contested threshold of whether the public is allowed to see and be informed about certain parts and aspects of famous people’s lives or not.