‘Privacy, Reputation and Freedom of Expression’

The UNSW Law Journal (‘Journal’) is currently welcoming submissions for the thematic component of Issue 49(2). The topic for this thematic is ‘Privacy, Reputation and Freedom of Expression’.

Privacy, reputation and freedom of expression are often regarded as rights derived from the inherent dignity of the human person. They are rights of increasing significance, given that each right is central to the preservation of an individual’s personality, identity and autonomy within a digitally connected world. These rights are also critical to governing an increasingly complex and digital information landscape.

Indeed, with the private sector relentlessly exploiting personal information, social media platforms dictating how billions communicate, and the internet providing new forums for uninhibited expression, the need to re-examine each right’s protections and manifestations is especially acute.

Recently, each right has become the subject of significant reform and judicial attention in the Australian context. In its first tranche of privacy reforms, Federal Parliament has introduced a landmark statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy. Defamation law is also undergoing profound change as courts and legislators grapple with the ubiquity of electronic publications by social media platforms and search engines. Further, legislators struggle to strike the right balance between maintaining freedom of expression but limiting damage in their efforts to curtail misinformation and regulate harmful speech.

With the advent of the information age and the rise of social media, the traditional balance between privacy, reputation and freedom of expression has been upended as these concepts assume wider regulatory significance.

In writing submissions, authors may wish to explore the following issues:

Privacy

• The ongoing reforms to Australia’s privacy landscape, for example those introduced by the Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2024 (Cth).
• Surveillance, covert data practices and the widespread use of facial recognition technologies.
• The digital permanence of personal information and the legitimacy of a right to be forgotten.
• The likelihood of an Australian common law tort of invasion of privacy, or whether privacy can adequately be protected through either nuisance or the equitable duty of confidence.
• Digital surveillance and intelligence gathering in law enforcement, such as those authorised by the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Act 2021 (Cth).
• The digital child and the disproportionate impacts of breaches of privacy on young people and vulnerable groups.
• The ethics, law and policy of the trading of personal information as data within the private sector.

Reputation

• The accountability of social media platforms and other digital intermediaries that disseminate the defamatory content of third parties and empower defamatory publication through virality and anonymity.
• Changes to the uniform defamation law, such as the serious harm threshold, public interest defence and the innocent dissemination defence.
• The uncertainty as to whether new technologies including AI and algorithmic systems can be effectively captured by defamation.
• Open Justice, the reputations of courts and the criticism of suppression orders in the digital age.
• The potential regulation of deepfakes and whether existing legal frameworks are apt to protect an individual’s image.

Freedom of Expression

• Recent legislative responses to harmful speech, vilification and misinformation.
• The role of digital platforms as gatekeepers of speech, and the implications of private content moderation.
• The lack of an express right to freedom of expression in Australia and the current High Court’s position on the implied freedom of political communication.
• Anti-protest laws, the domestic regulation of political demonstrations and their impacts on an Australian right to free expression.
• The extent to which academic freedom and freedom of intellectual inquiry are presently imperilled.

However, authors are not limited to these topics and are encouraged to draw upon their own interests and expertise. The Journal welcomes comparative, inter-disciplinary, historical and novel methodological approaches, as well as doctrinal scholarship. The submission deadline for the thematic Issue 49(2) is 14 November 2025, with publication set for late July 2026. Any changes to these deadlines will be updated on the Journal’s website.

Submissions should be between 7,000 and 13,000 words in length, excluding footnotes. The style guide for the Journal is the fourth edition of the Australian Guide to Legal Citation, as supplemented by the latest edition of the Journal’s ‘Additions’, which is available on our website.

The Journal is an independent, peer-reviewed publication. While publication is subject to peer review, publication decisions remain at the Editor’s discretion, in consultation with the Executive Committee of the Journal. The Journal does not publish articles that have been, or will be, published elsewhere, either in identical or substantially similar form. Please contact the Journal at law.journal@unsw.edu.au if you are interested or have queries about submitting for Issue 49(2).

If you intend to submit an article, it would be greatly appreciated if you could please provide some early indication of your proposed topic or area of research. We strongly encourage you to pass this call for submissions to any colleagues, research networks or organisations who may be interested in making a submission.

Yours sincerely,

Dean Cheong Foo

Editor, Issue 49(2)