A formerly anonymous blogger who wrote under the pen name NightJack has today found himself unmasked by a newspaper. The British High Court decided that NightJack couldn’t expect legal protection to prevent his identity being revealed. Which means the right to anonymity doesn’t exist anymore.

Anonymity and the right to it is surely a key tenet of society. To be private, and to keep one’s identity to oneself should surely be a basic human right. But what happens when the person with a desire to stay anonymous is a serving police officer, and is publishing his thoughts, feelings, and experiences of the job on a blog in the public domain?

Richard Horton is the police officer’s name, but he’s better known to thousands of people as NightJack. An officer and detective with the Lancashire Constabulary for 17 years, Horton began a blog called NightJack – An English Detective (now deleted) in February 2008.

Horton used the anonymous blog to detail life as a modern police officer, offering his opinions on ‘The Job’ and even weaving details of real cases into his posts. The blog built a readership of around 1,500 a day but in January, Horton decided to call it a day due to his writing becoming increasingly political and critical of the way the law worked.

Then came a nomination for the Orwell Prize which NightJack eventually won. The readership went through the roof, offers started flooding in, but the success also brought attention from the press. The Times newspaper found out Horton was NightJack and threatened to publish full details and pictures of him and his home.

Horton went to court to try and prevent this happening, worrying not only about the legal ramifications for his job and the force but also the safety of him and his family. Suffice to say, police officers aren’t the most popular of people amongst certain sectors of society.

The High Court of England and Wales today threw out his plea for anonymity, with Mr. Justice Eady stating that Horton had “no reasonable expectation of privacy” because blogging is “essentially a public rather than a private activity”.

This decision could have far-reaching consequences. It sets a precedent by which no U.K.-based anonymous blogger can expect the courts to back them if their identity is set to be revealed by an over-zealous journalist eager for a story. Which could make whistle blowers and truth-tellers a thing of the past.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 at 11:59 pm under Cell phones, Internet, Legal, Microsoft, Opinion.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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