The right of privacy: a new frontier in biomedicine in the UK and beyond?

On Monday 11 December 2023,  the Health Law and Ethics Network co-hosted a hybrid seminar with Health, Law and Emerging Technologies (HeLEX@Melbourne) on The right of privacy: a new frontier in biomedicine in the UK and beyond? with Dr Edward (Ted) Dove, Edinburgh Law School and Deputy Director of the J Kenyon Mason Institute for Medicine, Life Sciences and Law.

In the United Kingdom (UK), a new frontier in health privacy law has emerged: the protection against the misuse of one’s private (health) information through tort law, and to some degree, recognition of a stand-alone right of privacy in the common law. What caused this new form of legal protection to emerge, and what is its relationship with longer-standing forms of legal protection, including the duty of confidence and data protection law? I explore the jurisprudential development of the emerging tort of misuse of private information (MOPI), the influence of human rights law on privacy in the biomedical domain, and how nations within the UK may be taking divergent approaches to a common law right of privacy, including the scope of such a right. I argue that both the MOPI tort and a common law right of privacy as additional forms of legal protection may be welcomed as “gap-filling” measures to address long-standing concerns. However, I also suggest that significant gaps in the law remain that impact the scope of protection afforded to patients and research participants.