Action needed to protect privacy: Leveson - Breaking News - Sydney Morning ... - Sydney Morning Herald

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Urgent action must be taken to protect citizens' private lives from being exposed on social media and then archived forever on Google, the head of the UK's recent privacy and media inquiry says.

Justice Brian Leveson has warned there are no easy solutions to the problem, particularly since repeated attempts to curb the power of the mass media have failed.

At a symposium on privacy in Sydney on Friday, Justice Leveson said there was "an element of mob rule" in the defamatory publication of details of citizens' private lives online.

"To name and shame people by broadcasting their behaviour (online), there is a danger of real harm being done, and in some cases harm which is both permanent and disproportionate," he said.

"There is not only danger of trial by Twitter, but also of an unending punishment, and no prospect of rehabilitation, via Google.

"I offer no solutions or recommendations. I simply offer issues to be considered."

Justice Leveson handed down his 2000-page report on the culture and ethics of the press in the UK on November 29.

He says growth of the internet has complicated the debate about privacy which has been going on since the birth of the modern mass media.

He said it would be difficult to restrict the internet's power given that there had been a "historical failure to develop limitations on incursions into privacy by the media".

"It might reasonably be said that it is difficult to assume that any such limitations might evolve insofar as the internet is concerned," Justice Leveson said.

He noted the incident of two Australian radio hosts intruding on the privacy of the Duchess of Cambridge, calling her hospital and obtaining details of her condition by pretending to be the Queen and Prince Charles.

Justice Leveson said protection of privacy was necessary in order to properly protect freedom of public expression.

"What is often not fully appreciated is that privacy is in itself both an aspect of freedom of expression, and necessary for freedom of expression to be realised.

"The right to be silent is itself not only exercising a right to privacy but it is also a form of freedom of expression."