Phone hacking is the intercepting of calls or voic messages. This is often done by journalists to get the news and gossip on stories as well as leads on stories. The usual victims are usually celebrities, politicians and just recently the royal family. The process of hacking is not as difficult as one would imagine. The main thing to have is the persons phone number and the service provider. In many cases journalists would usually pay a lot of money to obtain these phone numbers.

Generally phone hacking is illegal. Hacking voic s and messages is classed as unlawful intersection of communication. This is under one of the Regulation of Investigation Powers Act 2000.

There has been scandals involving phone hacking by newspapers in particular News of The World which eventually lead to the newspaper being shut down. The royal family has also been victim to phone hacking and this lead to the royal editor being jailed. There was also the case involving murdered school girl Milly Dowler.

The Sunday newspaper was one of the oldest newspapers in the UK. Rupert Murdoch closed it down after the Milly Dowler phone hacking scandal. It was claimed that Milly Dowler's phone was hacked and was described as "truly dreadful" by the prime minister. Nearly more than 4,000 people had been identified by police as possible victims of phone hacking by the News of the World. The main targeted victims included politicians, celebrities, actors, sports people, relatives of dead UK soldiers and people who were caught up in the 7/7 London bombings. The opportunity to access voic messages came down to a simple security oversight. Mobile phones used to be supplied with a default factory-set personal identification number that could be used to access voic from another phone or abroad. This meant that anyone could call the phone and if the owner did not answer, the caller could use the Pin to access the voic and any stored messages.

Clive Goodman was a former royal editor and reporter for the News of the World. He was jailed for four months in January 2007 for intercepting mobile phone messages involving members of the Royal Household. He initially worked as a journalist for the Daily Mail before joining the News of the World as royal editor. He pleaded guilty to illegally intercepting phone messages of the Royal house hold. The story that first raised suspicion in the royal household that he had been tapping into phone messages appeared in the News of the World. It told how Prince William had consulted a doctor over a knee injury and had to postponed a mountain rescue course. This was information known to very few individuals. The royal household reported its suspicions to the police, and the investigation was began.

Milly Dowler was a murdered school girl whose phone was hacked by the News of the World. Her voic box had filled up and wouldn’t accept any more messages. The News of the World hacked into her phone and deleted some of the messages. This created false hope to her family that she could still be alive

The inquiry was set up by Lord Justice Leveson and it’s a two part inquiry. Its main purpose is to look at the culture, practices and ethics of the UK press and its relationship with police and politicians. It was also set up to look at the unlawful conduct within newspapers and journalists in obtaining stories and the polices original phone hacking investigation. There are also recommendations for more effective policy and regulations that have been made to support integrity and freedom of the press.

 Phone hacking is against the law as stated in Investigatory Regulatory Act 2000 and against Human Rights Law.  Although there is freedom of the press peoples privacy has got to be protected.  The victims of phone hacking have to be given more support for what they have been through.  The journalists have to realise that peoples reputation gets destroyed by such scandals.  There should be tougher laws against hacking to protect members of the public and their reputations.  The ECHR Art 8 1) states that everyone has the right to private and family life, his home and his correspondence. PRIVACY OF PEOPLE MUST BE RESPECTED