Journalists and data protection

Journalists need to understand that their investigations into people's private lives are limited by the Data Protection Act. To that end, it appears that they are going to be given special instruction. Meanwhile, Paul Dacre - the Daily Mail editor who heads up the committee that continually reviews the editors' code of practice - says his colleagues are going to consider whether to tighten up the code in respect to computer hacking. That's the burden of my London Evening Standard column today.