Confidence and Privacy: A Re-Examination

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

E-ISSN: 1469-2139|55|3|447-455

ISSN: 0008-1973

Source: Cambridge Law Journal, Vol.55, Iss.3, 1996-11, pp. : 447-455

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Abstract

The flexibility of the doctrine of confidence and its adaptability to illsorted and disparate situations has often attracted academic attention, but although it continues to develop, its ability to protect privacy has not perhaps been sufficiently emphasised in recent discussions of both privacy and confidence,despite the debate generated by the (recently abandoned) proposals for a new tort of invasion of privacy. The notion that developments in the doctrine of confidence could properly render it apt to protect privacy came under attack by Wilson in 1990 on the ground that legal obligations to maintain confidence of intolerably uncertain scope might arise as a result of the normal incidents of social life and friendship.