Press privacy complaints rising

The newspaper and magazine industry's self-regulatory body dealt with 206 privacy complaints last year, the report said. But that number failed to reflect the great deal of work it was doing in the field of privacy, it added.

The degree of publicity given to privacy cases which went to court meant that some people got the impression that there was a steady move away from the PCC, the report said.

"The truth is the opposite. The scope of the Commission's work on privacy is immense and not even captured by the published figures, which relate only to complaints that have been formally pursued.

"Its involvement in privacy issues is far broader, including: giving pre-publication advice to editors and complainants; resolving problems with newsgathering methods without the need for a formal complaint; dealing with thousands of informal requests for advice; as well as offering a wide range of remedies for breaches of the 11 clauses of the Code that relate to privacy and setting the boundaries on privacy through expanding the Commission's case law," it said.

PCC chairman Sir Christopher Meyer said: "Far from seeing a diminution in work on privacy we have seen an increase in the number of privacy issues."

The Commission was available to deal with privacy issues 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and its procedures and previous adjudications offered guidance to editors on the principles to apply when considering publishing stories. Editors themselves were also more willing to call the Commission and ask for advice about potentially-contentious cases.

The system was free, flexible, and had the advantage of being fast, whereas going to court often focused more attention on a case, Sir Christopher said.

The report said that last year the PCC received 231 complaints relating directly to a person's privacy - a slight increase on the previous year - of which 96 were settled amicably following an agreement brokered by its officials.

The PCC published a total of 19 adjudications concerning privacy in some way, of which the complaints were upheld in five cases.