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Human Rights: Restrictions

Confidentiality, defamation and the protection of reputation

  • 3 things to know
  • A2 Units 3 and 4

Overview

Three elements of a claim for breach of confidence, effect of confidential information entering the public domain and public interest defence to breach of confidence.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Your recallNot started
Numbers

Which case set out the three elements of breach of confidence?

Key term

What is the effect of confidential information entering the public domain?

Key term

Distinguish libel from slander.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    State the three elements of a claim for breach of confidence.

    Model answer

    The information must have the necessary quality of confidence, it must have been imparted in circumstances importing an obligation of confidence, and there must have been an unauthorised use of it to the detriment of the party who communicated it.

  2. 2

    Which case set out those three elements?

    Model answer

    Coco v A N Clark (Engineers) Ltd (1969).

  3. 3

    What is the effect of confidential information entering the public domain?

    Model answer

    The confidence is destroyed once the material is generally accessible, so an injunction can no longer serve any purpose, as the House of Lords held over memoirs already published abroad.

  4. 4

    What is the public interest defence to breach of confidence?

    Model answer

    There is no confidence in iniquity, so disclosing wrongdoing may be justified where the public interest in revealing it outweighs the interest in keeping it secret.

  5. 5

    Define defamation.

    Model answer

    Defamation is the publication of a statement that lowers the claimant in the estimation of right-thinking members of society generally, or causes them to be shunned or avoided.

  6. 6

    Distinguish libel from slander.

    Model answer

    Libel is defamation in a permanent form and is actionable without proof of loss, while slander is in a transient form and generally requires the claimant to prove special damage.

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