The right to privacy, or the right to private life, is at the heart of individual freedom and the right to be free from arbitrary government interference. The United Kingdom, although part of the European Union, has privacy issues unlike EU member states of Germany and France, for example, and yet the UK Press has much more freedom compared to the ordinary citizen.
This book (published in 2007) follows on from the author's 2004 book titled Civil Liberties in England and Wales. Privacy is a contemporary topic of law and some might even say, the hottest civil liberties topic. The UK government has before Parliament The Serious Crimes Bill 2007, one part of which will attempt to establish a super police database of all UK citizens' information and another part of which will attempt to make the interrogation of business files on personnel a legal compulsion. The UK government also has The Interception Of Communication (As Evidence) Bill 2007 before parliament. It is therefore fitting that the subject of privacy is aired.
