Outside the statutory regime, Australians have limited recourse
to protect their privacy rights at common law. This is because,
unlike other common law countries, our Courts have not developed a
tort of invasion of privacy. For example, unlike the United States,
Australia does not have any express common law cause of action with
respect to:
- intrusion upon a person's seclusion or solitude, or into
his/her private affairs;
- public disclosure of embarrassing private facts about a
person;
- publicity which places a person in a false light in the public
eye; or
- appropriation, for the perpetrator's advantage, of a
person's name or likeness.
Similarly, Australia does not recognise the extended concept of
breach of confidence as accepted in the United Kingdom in relation
to privacy rights.
