The SA Law Reform Institute is recommending the State’s Government establish a civil law, with a public interest test, to cover serious invasions of privacy in the digital era.

According to the Institute’s Report, it is unlikely that a common law privacy action will emerge through the courts in Australia in the foreseeable future. Accordingly, the Institute recommends that Parliament enact a cause of action for serious invasions of personal privacy.

The proposal is for a cause of action “which not only addresses the broad variety of factual circumstances in which interferences with a person’s privacy can occur, but which also strikes an appropriate balance between the public interest in preventing and dealing with interferences with a person’s dignitary interests and autonomy, and the strong public interest in competing matters such as freedom of expression.”