Holly Hancock

Dr Holly Hancock is a Lecturer in Tort Law at the University of East Anglia. Prior to that, she was a Research Fellow at Southampton Law School on the Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant on Privacy Law and a Visiting Lecturer in Media Law at the University of Westminster. Previously she completed her doctoral thesis on Privacy Law “Controlling the Shutter: Control, Consent and Context in today’s digital world”.

Holly’s research interests are in Media Law, in particular Privacy and Images. Her thesis sought to discover whether the current laws regarding privacy and photography strike the right balance for individual autonomy, concluding that although the law would benefit from improved clarity, education and guidance would be preferable when it comes to responsible photography taking and sharing. It also sought to discover the legal consequences of emerging uses of images and the potential implications these can have for autonomy. Given that more and more people own camera-enabled devices and have a social media presence, these issues are more topical than ever and of relevance to a large part of society. Even if a person does not photograph/film or own a social media profile themselves, there is a high probability that they have some form of online presence or shadow, perhaps from a very young age, which could lead to privacy concerns.