1 January 2014 brings in the Defamation Act 2013
1 January 2014 brings in the Defamation Act 2013
The Defamation Act 2013 will come into force on 1 January 2014. New provisions, set to reform defamation law, include the requirement to show serious harm in order to bring a claim; protections with regard to the publication of public interest material; a single publication rule to prevent multiple claims in respect of the same material; libel tourism; and protection for website operators hosting defamatory user-generated content provided that they comply with procedures enabling the complainant to resolve the dispute directly with the author of the defamatory material. It will be interesting to see how this ‘putting the two in touch with each other’ runs alongside the website host’s Data Protection obligations with regard to the correct processing and sharing of personal data (the defamatory author) with third parties (the complainant). Presumably they will simply toe the line of ‘disclosure required by law’ or something similar.