Private Fire from the Gods: The Protection of Personal Data - The Data Protection Act 1998 as a Celebrity Privacy Remedy

The Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) is the only piece of English legislation which is specifically directed at protecting personal information and an individual’s privacy in respect of it. Celebrities were “early adopters”, testing its effectiveness with cases like Campbell, Douglas and Murray. In each of those early cases, while the data protection claim was pleaded in the action, it was relegated to being little more than a footnote in the final result. In both Campbell and Douglas the DPA damages were assessed at £50. Supermodels are not the only celebrity litigants to need the prospect of more than that to get out of bed to litigate. The 10 years since Campbell has - as a result - seen a Promethean struggle to kindle the fire of the DPA’s potency and effectiveness. Also, as a result of the recent misuse of private information damages case of Gulati & others v MGN (where a total of £1.2m was awarded to 8 celebrities) the scope for damages in this area has been radically re-calibrated.