Defamation (Amendment) Act 2026

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PART 9

Miscellaneous

Circuit Court identification order

22. The Principal Act is amended by the insertion of the following section after section 44:

“45. (1) The Circuit Court (in this section referred to as the ‘court’) shall have jurisdiction to hear and determine an application in accordance with this section.

(2) An application shall be made by an applicant—

(a) in good faith, and

(b) on notice to the relevant intermediary service provider concerned.

(3) Upon an application, the court may, subject to subsection (4), make an order (in this section referred to as an ‘identification order’) requiring a relevant intermediary service provider to provide to the applicant such relevant information as the court may specify in the identification order where the court is satisfied that—

(a) a statement was published, or caused to be published, on an information society service by means of an intermediary service provider by a person or entity (in this section referred to as an ‘anonymous publisher’) whose identity is unknown to the applicant and whose identity is not readily ascertainable on the face of the statement or from other information available to the applicant on the information society service,

(b) a claim by the applicant in any defamation proceedings against the anonymous publisher that the statement is defamatory is likely to succeed at trial,

(c) the relevant information is necessary to enable the applicant to bring defamation proceedings against the anonymous publisher to whom the relevant information relates,

(d) the relevant information is likely to be in the possession of the relevant intermediary service provider, and

(e) the applicant has no other practicable means of obtaining the relevant information.

(4) A court may—

(a) make an identification order only where it considers that—

(i) it is in the interests of justice to do so, and

(ii) the interests favouring disclosure of relevant information outweigh those against,

having regard to the rights and obligations of the applicant and those of the anonymous publisher and any third parties who are reasonably likely to be affected by the order, and

(b) make the order subject to such conditions as it considers appropriate, which may include, in relation to the relevant information disclosed to the applicant by the relevant intermediary service provider in accordance with that order—

(i) terms restricting the use of the relevant information so disclosed to the bringing of defamation proceedings against the anonymous publisher, and

(ii) an undertaking by the applicant not to use the relevant information so disclosed other than to bring defamation proceedings against the anonymous publisher.

(5) The court may, whether or not it has made an identification order and where it considers it appropriate to do so, order that an applicant pay any or all of the costs of the relevant intermediary service provider in relation to an application and the costs resulting from the making of any identification order.

(6) In this section—

‘application’ means an application under this section for an identification order;

‘defamation proceedings’ means—

(a) an application under section 33 for an order to prevent the publication of an alleged defamatory statement,

(b) a defamation action, or

(c) a claim for other relief under this Act in respect of an alleged defamatory statement;

‘information society service’ means a service normally provided—

(a) for remuneration, whether such remuneration is provided directly by a recipient of services or indirectly through advertising or other means,

(b) at a distance, that is to say, that the service is provided without the parties being simultaneously present,

(c) by electronic means, that is to say, that the service is sent initially and received at its destination by means of electronic equipment for the processing (including digital compression) and storage of data, and entirely transmitted, conveyed and received by wire, by radio, by optical means or by other electromagnetic means, and

(d) at the individual request of a recipient of services, that is to say, that the service is provided through the transmission of data on individual request;

‘intermediary service’ means one of the following information society services:

(a) a ‘mere conduit’ service, consisting of the transmission in a communication network of information provided by a recipient of the service, or the provision of access to a communication network;

(b) a ‘caching’ service, consisting of the transmission in a communication network of information provided by a recipient of the service, involving the automatic, intermediate and temporary storage of that information, performed for the sole purpose of making more efficient the information’s onward transmission to other recipients upon their request;

(c) a ‘hosting’ service, consisting of the storage of information provided by, and at the request of, a recipient of the service;

‘intermediary service provider’ means a provider of an intermediary service;

‘recipient of the service’, in relation to an intermediary service, means any natural or legal person who uses an intermediary service, in particular for the purposes of seeking information or making it accessible;

‘relevant information’, in relation to an anonymous publisher, means information as to the identity, address or other contact information of the anonymous publisher;

‘relevant intermediary service provider’ means an intermediary service provider that provides the intermediary service by means of which a statement referred to in subsection (3)(a) is published, or caused to be published, by the anonymous publisher.”.