Under Construction Journal Issue 6.1 UNDER CONSTRUCTION JOURNAL 6.1 | Page 43

into two parts: the first will explain the terms of false privacy and false light, the second will analyse the
impact of false light tort to justify the false privacy.
False privacy and False light: What are the differences?
English false privacy refers to privacy complaints concerning the unauthorised publication of either
inaccurate information related to private life or private information without revealing its truth or falsity.
In its annual review, the Press Complaints Commission defined false privacy as follows:
“There has been recent comment about the notion of ‘false privacy’, which litigants in a very
small number of cases – one or two – have tried to introduce in order to take legal action
against newspapers for intrusion into privacy without saying whether the claims that have
been made about them are true or not. It would be a matter for the courts to decide whether
publishing an inaccuracy can be intrusive. The Commission has not taken this view, although
it has previously dealt with similar issues.”
In English law, it is well-established that the dichotomy of truth and falsehood is irrelevant under privacy
law. In other words, once information becomes formally private it could be protected under privacy law
regardless of whether it was deemed true, false or mixed information. Judged within the context of
confidentiality and privacy, it is apparent that falsity should not constitute an obstacle to the protection
of information once it is related to personal and private life. Dignitary interests can still be injuriously
affected by disseminated false information. The American writers Samuel Warren & Louis Brandeis, for
instance, affirmed that the nub of privacy lies within its protection of information’s intrinsically private
nature; hence, its truth or falsity has no valence within the realm of privacy. Eric Descheemaeker likewise
argues that the core of privacy rights centres around protecting the claimant’s right to control disclosure
of her private information, namely the ability to decide whether, when and to whom such information
ought to be revealed. Such an ability is logically affected by unauthorised disclosures of private
information, regardless of whether the disclosed information is true or false. Furthermore, privacy can be
breached by disclosing false private information because the truth itself is technically not a defence within
privacy actions.
American false light is one of the four types of privacy torts recognized in the American jurisdiction by the
Restatement of Law, Second (torts) under §.652E. Privacy may be invaded via a false light if:
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