As part of the fall-out following the resignation of the News of the World editor, Andy Coulson, over his staff tapping into private voicemail messages, the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) has told the Press that it should be doing more to stop unwarranted infringement of privacy.

The recommendations follow an investigation by the PCC after the convictions in January 2007 of the News of the World journalist, Clive Goodman, and an inquiry agent, Glenn Mulcaire, who speculatively tapped into private mobile phone messages and used the information they discovered for stories in the News of the World. The PCC’s recommendations make clear that the press, and any external inquiry agents they may use, need to do more to comply with the PCC’s Code and the law in this area. They include recommendations that UK newspapers and magazines should:

  • explicitly require compliance with the PCC’s Code in their contracts with external contributors, such as inquiry agents;
  • explicitly require compliance with the Data Protection Act in their contracts with employees; and
  • have an effective and fully understood "subterfuge protocol" for staff journalists, to include details of which senior person should be consulted for advice about whether public interest is sufficient to justify subterfuge;

The PCC’s new recommendations affirm that speculative snooping, whether by journalists or by inquiry agents they may employ, will not be tolerated. Journalists are permitted to obtain information by subterfuge only when it is justified by the public interest and it is impossible to obtain information through other means. Given the risk of criminal sanctions and the PCC’s new recommendations, which make the PCC’s "zero tolerance" position very clear, journalists and their editors are likely to exercise a great degree of caution when deciding whether or not to tap phones or attempt to obtain information by some other form of subterfuge. This can only be positive for companies who may be the subject of speculative "fishing expeditions" by the press.

Further reading: The PCC Report on Subterfuge and Newsgathering

This article was written for Law-Now, CMS Cameron McKenna's free online information service. To register for Law-Now, please go to www.law-now.com/law-now/mondaq

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The original publication date for this article was 22/05/2007.