Confidential Information in UK Law
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Attorney General v Guardian Newspapers Ltd and Others (No. 2)
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I start with the broad general principle (which I do not intend in any way to be definitive) that a duty of confidence arises when confidential information comes to the knowledge of a person (the confidant) in circumstances where he has notice, or is held to have agreed, that the information is confidential, with the effect that it would be just in all the circumstances that he should be precluded from disclosing the information to others.
But it is well settled that a duty of confidence may arise in equity independently of such cases; and I have expressed the circumstances in which the duty arises in broad terms, not merely to embrace those cases where a third party receives information from a person who is under a duty of confidence in respect of it, knowing that it has been disclosed by that person to him in breach of his duty of confidence, but also to include certain situations, beloved of law teachers - where an obviously confidential document is wafted by an electric fan out of a window into a crowded street, or when an obviously confidential document, such as a private diary, is dropped in a public place, and is then picked up by a passer-by.
It is that the principle of confidentiality only applies to information to the extent that it is confidential. In particular, once it has entered what is usually called the public domain (which means no more than that the information in question is so generally accessible that, in all the circumstances, it cannot be regarded as confidential) then, as a general rule, the principle of confidentiality can have no application to it.
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Michael Douglas (1st Respondent) Catherine Zeta-Jones (2nd Respondent) Nothern & Shell Plc (3rd Respondent) v Hello Ltd (1st Appellant) Hola S.A. (2nd Appellant) Eduardo Sanchez Junco (3rd Appellant)
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Insofar as a photograph does more than convey information and intrudes on privacy by enabling the viewer to focus on intimate personal detail, there will be a fresh intrusion of privacy when each additional viewer sees the photograph and even when one who has seen a previous publication of the photograph, is confronted by a fresh publication of it.
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Campbell v MGN Ltd
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Now the law imposes a 'duty of confidence' whenever a person receives information he knows or ought to know is fairly and reasonably to be regarded as confidential. The continuing use of the phrase 'duty of confidence' and the description of the information as 'confidential' is not altogether comfortable. Information about an individual's private life would not, in ordinary usage, be called 'confidential'. The essence of the tort is better encapsulated now as misuse of private information.
Accordingly, in deciding what was the ambit of an individual's 'private life' in particular circumstances courts need to be on guard against using as a touchstone a test which brings into account considerations which should more properly be considered at the later stage of proportionality. Essentially the touchstone of private life is whether in respect of the disclosed facts the person in question had a reasonable expectation of privacy.
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Faccenda Chicken Ltd v Fowler
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First there is information which, because of its trivial character or its easy accessibility from public sources of information, cannot be regarded by reasonable persons or by the law as confidential at all. ' The servant is at liberty to impart it during his service or afterwards to anyone he pleases, even his master's competitor.
- The Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013 (Disclosure of Confidential Information) Regulations 2014
- The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013 (Disclosure of Confidential Information) (Amendment) Regulations 2017
- The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Disclosure of Confidential Information) (Amendment) Regulations 2012
- The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Disclosure of Confidential Information) (Amendment) Regulations 2009
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Criminal infiltration of financial institutions: a penetration test case study
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the findings of a security research project commissioned by a financial institution to identify security breaches that could facilitate illicit acce...
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What is said in European Works Councils stays there. Confidentiality and how to cope with it
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study how employee representatives in European Works Councils (EWCs) treat confidential information and how such strategies might improve the EWC functionin...
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Careless whispers: confidentiality and board-level worker representatives
Purpose: The article focuses on the role that ‘confidential information’ plays in relation to the work of board-level worker representatives, and their interaction with other worker participation m...
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Part 4: Confidentiality and the duty of disclosure (Sub‐group 4: Impact of the initiatives on other areas of the law)
Examines the consequences of disclosing confidential information in the context of provisions of Sections 19 and 20 of the Terrorism Act 2002. Covers criminal law, intermediate law, and civil law, ...
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Employment News: confidential information, domestic abuse, survey
See no evil – new employer breached equitable duty of confidence - In Travel Counsellors Ltd v Trailfinders Ltd, the Court of Appeal upheld a decision that Travel Counsellors was in breach of an eq...
- How Are Businesses' Confidential Information And Trade Secrets Protected?
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Infused oils, investment managers and one combining factor: confidential information
Cases involving confidential information have been keeping the High Court busy over the last few months. In this article, we look at two such recent cases: Kerry Ingredients (UK) Ltd v. Bakkavor Gr...
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Tough stance on confidential information: search and destroy ordered
The court ordered, on an interim application, that the claimants’ confidential information be searched for and destroyed on the defendants’ computers. In an area of law where there was previously n...