logo
Is nothing private any more?

Is nothing private any more?

Spectator18-06-2025
A few years ago, when I taught at university, a student who lived with their parents told me they had argued with their mother about what they described as 'queer identity'. The student had secretly recorded the argument and wondered what I thought about them using it for a piece of writing. I think their assumption was that because I'm a journalist I would embrace the idea. I did not.
How did the UK become a place where young people think it's permissible to record a relative at home and make that recording public? Why has privacy been so easily discarded, and why have people welcomed its demise so they can control the behaviour of others?
My assumption was that Strangers and Intimates would focus on recent decades and technology – with the erasure of privacy stemming from people having the means of surveillance to counter behaviour they think should be punished. But Tiffany Jenkins goes deeper than that, telling the story from the Reformation onwards, examining why people intruded on privacy long before the internet age, and why others fought for it:
The fact is, we are all different in private. We may not be our best selves when we shut the door. We misspeak, we think the unthinkable, we let off steam, we rant and we rave, and we say and do stupid things. Privacy conceals harmful behaviour and impedes accountability, and yet we all require that place away from public view.
That tension, between wanting to be left unchecked to behave as feels human vs the desire of society to protect people from harmful behaviour and accountability, is what drives Jenkins's book.
In early 17th-century England, courts punished behaviour such as adultery, sex outside marriage, drinking in alehouses during church service and dancing on the Sabbath. They 'relied upon members of the community to police each other', Jenkins writes. As well as religious control, she tackles the impact of feminism, the more recent hawking of our private lives – Prince Harry and Big Brother get a mention – and the clampdown on freedoms. The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 makes it illegal to say something even at home that could stir up hatred against people with protected characteristics:
This is a historic change. Since the 17th century, it has been accepted that there is a crucial distinction between what a person says or thinks in private and their public speech, a demarcation between private life and public life. Only totalitarian governments ignored that.
Jenkins takes care to remind us why privacy has been invaded, from a law against incest introduced in the 1600s to the killing of seven-year-old Marie Colwell in 1973 by her stepfather and the increased intervention that followed. But she also mentions the 'removal of 121 children from their parents in Cleveland in 1987, based on later disproved allegations of sexual and Satanic abuse'. So there is a line – but where to draw it?
It has been misjudged many times, whether by a student recording a parent, Boris Johnson's neighbours revealing his quarrel with his partner over spilled wine (an example Jenkins refers to), or those online warriors who expose private messages with 'got receipts' chutzpah but show no awareness of the broader damage they are doing for a petty win. I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, before email. Letters were private. Even when I started using email, at university and then work in the early 2000s, it was regarded as private. It was only when an infamous email (I won't mention the name, for privacy's sake) went viral that we realised the risk. Now we know emails are not private, so we're careful – the same as we are in all our messages and in our behaviour. We are always being monitored, so act accordingly.
Towards the end of Strangers and Intimates Jenkins writes:
The divide between public and private… has dissolved. The two realms have become indistinguishable, leading to confusion about the rules governing each and preventing the realisation of their respective benefits.
For years it felt shocking that so many turned against free expression, and it seemed impossible that the tide could turn back again. But that tide has shifted a bit. Maybe the erosion of privacy could also be reversed, so we can behave in the more human way, as we once did. This book might be a start.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Failure over domestic abuse law is leaving women at risk
Failure over domestic abuse law is leaving women at risk

Sunday Post

time27-06-2025

  • Sunday Post

Failure over domestic abuse law is leaving women at risk

Get a weekly round-up of stories from The Sunday Post: Thank you for signing up to our Sunday Post newsletter. Something went wrong - please try again later. Sign Up Key new powers to protect domestic abuse victims are still gathering dust four years after MSPs voted for them – and all ministers have done in the past 12 months is hold a workshop. Holyrood unanimously backed the new law in 2021 to help police, courts and landlords deal with emergencies where women are in acute danger. But John Swinney is now the third first minister who has failed to activate the powers. The same Domestic Abuse Prevention Orders and Notices (DAPOs and DAPNs) promised for Scotland are now up and running in a series of pilot schemes in England and Wales. In Greater Manchester alone, DAPOs were used more than 200 times in the first few months with at least six brutes ending up behind bars for breaching them. But while those abusers were being rounded up down south, the Scottish Government convened a workshop on the logjam last March. Now ministers have revealed that the measures are being shelved indefinitely while they set up a new working group to talk about the issue further. Sophie Berry, a solicitor for the Women's Rights Project at Glasgow's Govan Law Centre, said: 'The failure to implement this legislation is an unforgivable missed opportunity to help vulnerable women and children escape domestic violence and abuse in Scotland. 'It took many years of consultation and careful drafting to get the Domestic Abuse (Protection) (Scotland) Act 2021 on to the statute book, and it received overwhelming support. 'I see no credible argument for why England and Wales are able to achieve what we apparently cannot, four years after our own legislation was passed.' Scottish Conservative MSP Pam Gosal has lodged her own Bill at Holyrood, calling for a register of domestic abusers. She said: 'Given that domestic abuse cases remain shamefully high, the SNP government's haphazardness when it comes to delivering legislation on this issue is deeply alarming. 'Even by their standards, this failure to pass competent legislation and get it implemented is beyond unacceptable and shamefully betrays victims. 'DAPOs are supposed to protect the most vulnerable, but now it could be years before we get them implemented. 'If the SNP Government are serious about tackling the scourge of domestic abuse, they must start putting victims first. A good place to start is by giving their backing for my Prevention of Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Bill that is going through parliament.' Scottish Labour justice spokeswoman Pauline McNeill said: 'The SNP promised to protect vulnerable women and children, but after four years, three first ministers and countless delays, all they've delivered is a workshop. 'While England and Wales are jailing abusers under DAPOs, SNP ministers have shelved the same powers in Scotland and are now blaming their own legislation. 'This is a shameful failure – and it lies squarely at the feet of the SNP and John Swinney. 'We need action, not warm words. Vulnerable women and ­children are being let down because of their incompetence and inaction.' The Domestic Abuse (Protection) (Scotland) Act was passed by MSPs of all parties in March 2021 – by 118 votes to 0. Then Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf hailed it as 'transformational legislation', predicting it would help between 600 and 3,000 families a year. He told Holyrood: 'We collectively have a duty to ensure that our law and law-enforcement agencies have the tools to (protect) victims… 'We should never again have that stain on our collective conscience that victims of domestic abuse – predominantly women – must flee their homes in order to protect themselves.' The Act targets perpetrators in two ways. Firstly, it would allow a council or housing association landlord to evict a convicted domestic abuser if the victim wishes to carry on living in the property. But even before a case goes to court, the police would be able to issue a suspect with a DAPN, ordering him or her out of the shared home if there is a risk of physical violence or psychological trauma escalating. Courts can then follow up with a DAPO to cement the protection for three months and impose a vast range of conditions on suspects that can include being fitted with a GPS tracker or attending drug or drink rehab. Police in England and Wales already had more powers than Scottish officers, and now the enhanced notices and orders have been running for several months in Greater Manchester, London, Cleveland and north Wales. But they still cannot be used in Scotland because SNP ministers have failed to table the secondary legislation needed to bring them to life. Last summer, The Sunday Post highlighted fears that victims are being left at risk because of the delay, with then Housing Minister Paul McLennan admitting in an excruciating podcast interview that he was totally confused. He said: 'I think obviously there was legislation, you know, there shouldn't have been, and to be ­honest, I don't know how that would actually work.' Since then, three Holyrood committees have put pressure on the government to come up with a solid date for implementation. But this week, Victims and Community Safety Minister Siobhian Brown wrote to the equalities committee: 'The consensus from those who participated in the workshop was that fundamental changes were needed to the legislation. 'A short-life working group will be established to consider recommendations for possible legislative change to ensure that domestic abuse protection orders can be implemented operationally and sustainably. 'Once determined and agreed, we will look to consult more widely in 2026 and thereafter consider the need for legislation.' The Scottish Government said it is handing £21.6 million this year to more than 100 organisations working to prevent violence against women and girls and support survivors. It said: 'We are committed to fully implementing the Act 2021. This is a complex piece of legislation, and through extensive and close working with stakeholders several unexpected operational challenges have been raised. 'A short-life working group is being established to consider ­possible legislative changes to ensure the Act can be implemented as intended and so it works for people. We will then consult on any proposed changes.' A catalogue of ministers have played their part in the failure to implement the Act. Nicola Sturgeon used the 2019 SNP party conference to announce the coming of DAPOs – and repeated the pledge in her Programme for Government speech of 2020. Her successor, Humza Yousaf, was justice secretary when the law was passed. Both are set to leave Holyrood at the election next year with golden goodbye resettlement grants in excess of £100,000 without having seen through their promises to domestic abuse victims. Among other justice secretaries, Michael Matheson – another about to stand down as an MSP – first touted the orders in 2017 while Keith Brown claimed Part 2 would go live in 2022. Current incumbent Angela Constance insisted those landlord powers would be up and running by spring 2024. So too did Deputy First Minister Shona Robison, when she was social justice secretary, and ex-housing minister McLennan. Minister for parliamentary business Jamie Hepburn and equalities minister Kaukab Stewart have been liaising with committees about the delays. It was Brown, the victims and community safety minister , who wrote to MSPs on Holyrood's equalities committee last week to reveal that DAPOs have been put on the back-burner. She said: 'We will look to consult more widely in 2026 and thereafter consider the need for legislation.' Timeline How progress stalled after government promises nearly eight years ago. Nov 2017 Justice secretary Michael Matheson reveals plan for new orders. Oct 2019 Sturgeon to SNP conference: 'Within this parliamentary term, we will introduce a new law to establish emergency protective orders.' Sept 2020 Programme for Government: 'The experience of lockdown reiterated the importance of protecting women and girls…facing domestic abuse.' Oct 2020 The Bill is introduced along with consultation. Jan 2021 Justice committee backs the Bill but says more work needed to make it practical. Mar 2021 The Bill becomes law after MSPs vote. Apr 2021 Westminster passes its own Domestic Abuse Act for DAPOs/DAPNs in England and Wales. Winter 2022 Deadline missed to implement Part 2, which gives powers to landlords to eject abusers. Sept 2023 Justice Secretary Angela Constance: 'Detail being worked through.' Working group set up to discuss Part 1. Spring 2024 Another deadline to implement Part 2 of the Bill is missed. Jun 2024 Housing minister Paul McLennan: 'I don't know how that would actually work.' Nov 2024 Pilot schemes activated across England and Wales. Police begin using the orders. Mar 2025 Workshop held to discuss Part 1. Jun 2025 Part 1 shelved indefinitely with new working group and consultation to be set up in 2026. Dec 2025 New deadline for Part 2, but warning that it may be delayed yet again. OPINION: Survivors affected by lack of urgency By Sophie Berry, Solicitor at the Govan Law Centre, Glasgow It really is incredible that here we are, yet another year down the line, and still there's no sign of the key parts of this legislation being implemented, just endless delays and excuses. Deadlines missed and promises broken, but plenty of time for a workshop, consultations and working groups. It's unbelievably frustrating for all of Scotland's domestic abuse organisations that have contributed significant time and resources to bringing this legislation into existence. Far more importantly, though, these are potentially life-and-death measures for survivors who continue to be affected by the lack of urgency with still no end in sight. Almost 64,000 domestic abuse cases were reported to Police Scotland in 2023/24, with 81% involving a male perpetrator and a female victim. Every day at Govan Law Centre's Women's Rights Project, we see women and children suffering the consequences of the failure to put these protections in place. Yet, at the same time, we hear that significant progress is being made in England and Wales, with pilot schemes which appear to be making a real difference to the lives of survivors. It makes no sense. Women are most at risk just when they are trying to leave an abusive partner. Giving the police the power to intervene on behalf of a person at imminent risk could make a vital difference at the most critical time. And that's as true today as it was in 2021, so any further delay would be unforgivable.

When vice was policed by church & fornication was everyone's business
When vice was policed by church & fornication was everyone's business

The Herald Scotland

time22-06-2025

  • The Herald Scotland

When vice was policed by church & fornication was everyone's business

Several people claimed to have witnessed the scene, which seems unlikely unless the masonry was as holey as Swiss cheese. But it certainly reveals the climate of state-sanctioned snooping that prevailed during an era when 'privacy', if mentioned at all, was considered a sinister cover for wickedness. In her fascinating new social history, Dr Tiffany Jenkins peers through the keyhole of the past to examine the Western world's changing attitudes towards public and private life. By the early 18th century, we learn, a clear distinction between the social and personal had evolved with the (male-dominated) business of politics, commerce, and ideas conducted in Parliament, marketplaces and coffee houses. Read more Meanwhile, for the wealthy at least, the domestic realm became more clearly delineated with curtains, partitioned rooms and distinct bedchambers. Grand houses even had separate service corridors to spare the gentry from encountering last night's reeking chamber pots as they were whisked away by servants (whose own sole source of privacy would have been a lockable wooden box). As the centuries progressed, the sanctity of the private sphere became a battleground and Jenkins offers an entertaining account of controversies that have raged over people's right to defend their homes, their mail or their conversations against prying eyes and ears. During the 1840s, the interception of private letters sent to Italian political exile Giuseppe Mazzini provoked outrage, with Scottish thinker Thomas Carlyle likening the practice to 'picking men's pockets'. Half-a-century later, the newly minted snapshot camera was marketed as offering the 'thrill' of taking someone's picture 'without their knowledge' and women who'd unwittingly been photographed in the street by so-called Kodak fiends were aghast to find their faces appearing in adverts for soap or tobacco. When Broadway star Marion Manola was surreptitiously snapped onstage with her legs clad in nothing but tights, she went to court to prevent the images being ogled by 'every fellow who could afford' them prompting accusations that, having happily displayed her pins on a public stage, she hadn't a be-stockinged leg to stand on. The hypocrisy charge remains a popular paparazzi defence against high-profile complainants. Take Prince Harry, who won substantial damages for press intrusion only to be dubbed 'the biggest invader of privacy in royal history' over the explosive revelations in his memoir, Spare. Another tabloid trope is that 'the public interest' trumps privacy and a notorious 1960s scandal offers a case in point. When news broke that the British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, was having an affair with model Christine Keeler, acres of prurient coverage were justified on the grounds that her involvement with a Soviet naval attache threatened national security. Not everyone agreed and the event helped trigger the tabling of a parliamentary privacy bill calling for 'the right to be left alone'. Monica Lewinsky was accorded no such privilege over her affair with Bill Clinton. Her humiliating interrogation before the Starr committee, with the world's press salivating over every salacious detail, was legitimised as exposing the deceitfulness of a man unfit for presidential office but for the young White House intern, it felt like a violation. Today, as people splurge ever more intimate details of their lives over reality TV and 'lifestream' blogs, the plea to be left alone may seem anachronistic. ('If Prince Harry really wants his privacy, he must shut up!' suggested TalkTV's royal correspondent Rupert Bell.) But Jenkins warns this ignores the complexities involved, arguing that the hard-won distinction between our public and private lives needs to be defended as - for all the righteous talk about transparency - the ability to live at least part of our lives free from observation is precious. The private sphere, she writes, is where we 'take off our public masks' and 'can make mistakes with those we trust' - though this sanctuary is under threat at a time when people's unguarded remarks are triumphantly laid bare. Indeed, Jenkins raises the spectre of a quasi-Stalinist ethos in which 'divulging private conversations is incentivised, rather than stigmatised as reprehensible snitching', especially north of the Border where, she writes, the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act makes ours 'the only country in the Western world where the state has the power to police speech in the privacy of the home'. Read more You might argue that racist, sexist or homophobic remarks are an obvious evil deserving of exposure but Jenkins asks us to think carefully about the implications of a regime in which private speech (including WhatsApp messaging) is controlled, pointing out that 'a society in which we must filter everything we say through a kind of internalised show trial … inevitably encourages conformity and uniformity'. There are conflicting concerns, not least over freedom of information and Jenkins doesn't pretend an unregulated private realm is an unmitigated good, noting that in the 1970s, some radical feminists opposed privacy rights on the grounds they served male supremacy. They had a point, too: bringing rape and domestic abuse out of the shadows and into the courts was among the triumphs of the women's movement. But she lists their well-intentioned insistence that 'the personal is political' among the factors that eroded societal respect for people's privacy, leading to a burgeoning surveillance culture that reached new heights during the pandemic lockdowns. Agree or not, this is a debate we urgently need to be having. Hugely ambitious in its scope, Strangers and Intimates offers an accessible history of philosophical, ecclesiastical and judicial thought across more than four centuries. It also ventures into highly sensitive contemporary territory and raises questions that may challenge those who think outlawing free speech is progressive. They should definitely read this book.

Is nothing private any more?
Is nothing private any more?

Spectator

time18-06-2025

  • Spectator

Is nothing private any more?

A few years ago, when I taught at university, a student who lived with their parents told me they had argued with their mother about what they described as 'queer identity'. The student had secretly recorded the argument and wondered what I thought about them using it for a piece of writing. I think their assumption was that because I'm a journalist I would embrace the idea. I did not. How did the UK become a place where young people think it's permissible to record a relative at home and make that recording public? Why has privacy been so easily discarded, and why have people welcomed its demise so they can control the behaviour of others? My assumption was that Strangers and Intimates would focus on recent decades and technology – with the erasure of privacy stemming from people having the means of surveillance to counter behaviour they think should be punished. But Tiffany Jenkins goes deeper than that, telling the story from the Reformation onwards, examining why people intruded on privacy long before the internet age, and why others fought for it: The fact is, we are all different in private. We may not be our best selves when we shut the door. We misspeak, we think the unthinkable, we let off steam, we rant and we rave, and we say and do stupid things. Privacy conceals harmful behaviour and impedes accountability, and yet we all require that place away from public view. That tension, between wanting to be left unchecked to behave as feels human vs the desire of society to protect people from harmful behaviour and accountability, is what drives Jenkins's book. In early 17th-century England, courts punished behaviour such as adultery, sex outside marriage, drinking in alehouses during church service and dancing on the Sabbath. They 'relied upon members of the community to police each other', Jenkins writes. As well as religious control, she tackles the impact of feminism, the more recent hawking of our private lives – Prince Harry and Big Brother get a mention – and the clampdown on freedoms. The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 makes it illegal to say something even at home that could stir up hatred against people with protected characteristics: This is a historic change. Since the 17th century, it has been accepted that there is a crucial distinction between what a person says or thinks in private and their public speech, a demarcation between private life and public life. Only totalitarian governments ignored that. Jenkins takes care to remind us why privacy has been invaded, from a law against incest introduced in the 1600s to the killing of seven-year-old Marie Colwell in 1973 by her stepfather and the increased intervention that followed. But she also mentions the 'removal of 121 children from their parents in Cleveland in 1987, based on later disproved allegations of sexual and Satanic abuse'. So there is a line – but where to draw it? It has been misjudged many times, whether by a student recording a parent, Boris Johnson's neighbours revealing his quarrel with his partner over spilled wine (an example Jenkins refers to), or those online warriors who expose private messages with 'got receipts' chutzpah but show no awareness of the broader damage they are doing for a petty win. I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, before email. Letters were private. Even when I started using email, at university and then work in the early 2000s, it was regarded as private. It was only when an infamous email (I won't mention the name, for privacy's sake) went viral that we realised the risk. Now we know emails are not private, so we're careful – the same as we are in all our messages and in our behaviour. We are always being monitored, so act accordingly. Towards the end of Strangers and Intimates Jenkins writes: The divide between public and private… has dissolved. The two realms have become indistinguishable, leading to confusion about the rules governing each and preventing the realisation of their respective benefits. For years it felt shocking that so many turned against free expression, and it seemed impossible that the tide could turn back again. But that tide has shifted a bit. Maybe the erosion of privacy could also be reversed, so we can behave in the more human way, as we once did. This book might be a start.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store