Hardly a day has gone by without coverage in the media of privacy injunctions. It is a subject that has excited the media, from The Star to The Times. But what is the difference between ‘super’, ‘hyper’ and ‘anonymised’ injunctions, and is all the media fuss really justified?
The term ‘superinjunction’ was first used by The Guardian in the Trafigura case against them in 2009. It not only anonymised the details of the claimant, but the ‘super’ part prohibited publication of all information relating to the proceedings or the intended claim. Prior to the Human Rights Act (HRA) of 1998, there was no protection of privacy, with individuals relying on the law of confidence. But as a number of the early kiss-and-tell cases showed, that law did not protect more general areas of people’s private lives.
