Your article, “Experience of Kenya student whose picture was used to sell a university” (Daily Nation, December 24, 2021), is one amongst increasing instances of infringement of personality. This is partly a legal and commercial problem.
The public exploitation of a person’s image for commercial benefit, direct or indirect, is comparable to the doctrine of “passing off” in trademark infringement. In several jurisdictions, special rights have been created precisely for such scenarios under different styles such as image rights, publicity rights or personality rights.
In Kenya, we don’t have such sui generis (unique) legal protections. Instead, courts have used the fiction of privacy rights anchored in the Constitution to attempt to provide a legal solution. However, there is a gap in using privacy rights because they mostly cover instances of unauthorised use of a person’s images, where no authorisation was sought for the picture to be taken and none was granted for any use.
This is distinguished from cases such as that of Njeri Aseneka, who gave consent for her photo to be taken but only for a particular use. If she were to sue in Kenya, Njeri wouldn’t be successful under a privacy rights violation petition. Such cases fall on the periphery of privacy rights.
There is a case for law review to cater for sui generis legal protection from unauthorised commercial or public exploitation of one’s image.
— Moses Muchiri
* * *
Crypric cartoons
Since you changed your cartoonist to the present one, I have lost enthusiasm in the cartoons. Sometimes I try to understand what he is trying to say but give up as the cartoon is like a crossword puzzle. A cartoon is supposed to be simple and have impact at a glance.
— Edward Kinyanjui, Gatanga
* * *
Hyphenation in ‘Young Nation’
My seven-year-old son and I enjoy spending Sunday afternoons reading through the ‘Young Nation’ stories for the lessons they pack and the vocabulary they give him.
But lately, I’ve noticed that it has become difficult for his young brain to read through the countless words that are split at the end of a line. He reads through them words as if they are separate and ends up confused. I request that split words be avoided in the children’s section. BY DAILY NATION