Malone v Metropolitan Police Commissioner [1979] Ch 344<\/strong><\/p>\nTelephone tapping \u2013 Unlawful interception<\/p>\n
Facts<\/h3>\n
Malone (M) was charged with handling stolen property. During the Crown Court prosecution of M, the prosecution admitted that the Post Office (P) had intercepted M\u2019s telephone conversations under the authority of the Secretary of State for use by the police. M sought declarations against the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis that such conduct was unlawful and for an injunction against the Metropolitan Police Commissioner (D) to restrain interception of his telephone conversations.<\/p>\n
Issue<\/h3>\n
The issue in question was whether the telephone tapping by P by means of recording telephone conversations from wires which, though connected to the subscriber\u2019s premises, are not on them, is unlawful under English law.<\/p>\n
Decision \/ Outcome<\/h3>\n
There was no right of property in words transmitted over a telephone apart from copyright, nor was there a right to privacy on the telephone in English law. The court also found that P was not contractually bound to confidentiality. Moreover, it was not D, the defendant, who had intercepted the conversations, it was P, and no unlawful conduct could be established as there was no law against the Post Office tapping telephones by means of recording from wires which were not on the subscriber\u2019s premises.\u00a0M\u2019s declaration was refused. This case later came before the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Malone v. The United Kingdom <\/em><\/strong>(1984) 7 EHRR 14 <\/strong>which held that the interception was an \u2018interference by a public authority\u2019 with the right to private life, the scope and clarity of the exercise of this power being unclear under English law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Malone (M) was charged with handling stolen property. During the Crown Court prosecution of M, the prosecution admitted that the Post Office (P) had intercepted M\u2019s telephone conversations under the authority of the Secretary of State for use by the police.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[87],"class_list":["post-5168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cases","tag-eu-law"],"yoast_head":"\n
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