Once again this year, cheating couples are in the spotlight. But what about privacy?

The good news is that relationships aren’t quite dead yet; at least the clandestine ones retain a slight margin of functionality. Gone, however, are the romances of the famous – now expert Vietcong masters of denial – see the new couples like Tom Holland and Zendaya: zero politics, no brioche for the people. For entertainment, we’re left with the common folk; we’ll sort it out amongst ourselves. This is the third August in a row that a cheating couple has been filmed and exposed. It’s become the only summer gossip we can afford. Last year, those two unfortunate individuals at the Coldplay concert; the year before, the Segre vs. Seymandi affair – the unrivalled number one, the wonder of wonders. This year, things are a bit lean: a video posted on TikTok shows two run-of-the-mill lawyers kissing on a bench in Central Park. The influencer’s footage (that subject alone warrants an editorial: a sinister determination, a puritanical ferocity enough to make your hands go cold) has millions of views. The pair have been identified. Whistleblowing in the office, careers down the drain.

But, but. These were the misfortunes of celebrities, Hollywood – what’s it got to do with the rest of us now? The deal with the stars was clear: they give you money and fame, and in return you get intrusion – being caught out, photographs, gossip. Now the average Joe on the street risks being filmed just the same; it’s an injustice. Who gets caught on camera and who doesn’t by chance: it’s a toss-up. And what about privacy? Does it no longer exist? Does it count for nothing? For centuries, the right to privacy (the Romans’ “ius excludendi alios,” the right to enclose) had not been an autonomous right but a consequence. The walls of houses provided shelter, and the means of protection were not what they are today. Then the slowness of communication did the rest, preventing widespread dissemination; private life was protected by the limitations of human means. You might be caught coming out of the wrong bed, and the rumour would spread sparingly, at the speed of speech – a gentle breeze. Gossip had to contend with doubt and pass through other people, leaving it open to distortion. Oblivion was a sort of physical law, so it didn’t take much effort to remain discreet whilst getting up to no good.

It was 1890 when Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis published the article in the Harvard Law Review that laid the foundations for the entire discipline: "The Right to Privacy". The definition is marvellous; I have yet to find a better one: "the right to be let alone". Privacy was a new right because the power against which it was intended to protect the individual was itself new: it was not a matter of prying into other people’s affairs, but of the repugnant possibility of extracting a fragment – from lives that are not our own – from the context in which it had arisen, reproducing it and transporting it elsewhere. Can behaviour carried out in public be turned into a spectacle? The right to privacy says no; modern times say yes, and how. More, more!

The distinction between knowing and being able to disseminate has now blurred. Seeing is as good as recording: with Zuckerberg’s evil little glasses, they’ll do all sorts to us. “But there’s a little red light to warn you when it’s recording!” – they say. As if that makes any difference. Record-publish-identify-bring about a grim end: social media has merged all these steps, and this is the result. Of course, the law still exists. There are regulations on data processing, image rights, privacy, communications and platform liability – it’s all there. We have independent authorities, takedown procedures and claims for compensation. You can go to a solicitor and pay a hefty fee, and perhaps you’ll get a few pennies, but who’s going to give you back the life you had before? No one. Has privacy now become merely a right to compensation? What’s more, we’re chasing infringements on the back of an elephant: our justice system. Which isn’t exactly the swiftest animal on the savannah. By the time a ruling is handed down, the incident has long since become a meme, an internet legend, and has spawned six hundred newspaper articles and ten million comments.

I’ll wrap up this long rant: in future, privacy will be a matter of chance, and any potential intrusions into our lives won’t stem from specific interests but from the five minutes of boredom felt by whoever happens to be in front of us wearing the devil’s glasses. I suspect these times are becoming a bit too interesting.