Privacy at the Intersection of Public Law and Private Law

To demonstrate that any common law system can adequately and legitimately protect informational privacy through a private law action influenced by public law, this paper argues that: tort law can accommodate privacy protection, and the English action is appropriately labelled a �tort�; the English tort does not depend upon the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA), allowing other common law jurisdictions to choose to adopt aspects of that tort; and the public law tool of proportionality can determine privacy tort outcomes in a way that ensures credible legal protection of the fundamental right to privacy in the private sphere, without unjustifiably encroaching upon other rights.