[Edit]Right to personal privacy

The right to personal privacy is not precisely defined and can be more properly described as the cumulative effect of a collection of different rights. There is no general right to privacy in English law and the courts, when faced with cases alleging an invasion of privacy, have made it clear that the creation of such a right can only be done by Parliament.^[10] A patchwork of different torts combine to protect an individual from harassment, including the dissemination of information about him or her, see the torts of trespass, harassment, defamation, nuisance and malicious falsehood.

The criminal law also provides a certain level of protection. It is an offence to use violence to obtain unauthorised access to a property (under the Criminal Law Act 1977 and the Protection from Eviction Act 1977). There is an offence of intentional harassment, alarm or distress under section 4A of the Public Order Act 1986. A person's right to communicate privately is also protected to a certain degree (by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000), as is his or her right of access to personal information (by the Data Protection Act 1998). The right to a private life, mentioned below, also links in with this right.

In recent cases involving celebrities the House of Lords have sought to remedy the absence of a right to privacy by extending the protection offered by the law of confidence. Therefore, the model Naomi Campbell was able to obtain damages from a newspaper which had published photographs of her leaving a Narcotics Anonymous meeting,^[11] and Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jonessuccessfully sued Hello! for publishing unauthorised photographs of their wedding; OK! which had purchased the exclusive rights to the photographs was also able to obtain redress on the basis that it had paid a large sum of money for the images, giving them therefore commercial value worthy of protection by the law. Giving this innovative judgment, Lord Hoffmann emphasised that the ruling did not amount to the recognition of image rights in English law.^[12]

[Edit]No arbitrary searches or seizures

Protection against arbitrary searches and seizures overlaps with the rights to liberty, privacy and natural justice. In English law, the right to be free of arbitrary searches and seizures is found mainly in the legislation regulating the powers of the police to conduct searches and take evidence. Therefore, under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, a constable's right to stop and search persons and vehicles is limited by section 2, as are the powers of a Justice of the Peace to authorise the entry and search of premises. In addition, section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994allows a senior police officer to authorise all police officers in a locality to stop and search any pedestrian or vehicle where the officer has grounds for believing that the individual is carrying an 'offensive weapon' or a 'dangerous instrument'. In 1998 this legislation was extended to allow the officer to require the person to remove clothing worn for the purpose of concealing his identity, and to confiscate that article of clothing. Special extended powers also apply in the case of terrorist suspects.

In civil cases, a judge may grant an Anton Piller order authorising the search of premises and seizure of evidence without prior warning. The order's purpose is to prevent the destruction of incriminating evidence, particularly in cases of alleged intellectual property infringement.