Harry: My lack of privacy ‘from birth’ and ‘personal’ cost of legal fight

The Duke of Sussex has spoken of how he experienced lack of privacy “from birth” as he described the “personal and reputational cost for me, my wife, and our children” of taking legal action against “powerful institutions”.

Harry delivered a keynote speech in Washington DC on Tuesday – the day his father the King’s historic state visit to the US was announced.

The duke, who stepped aside from the working monarchy six years ago, was born a spare to the heir and third in line to the throne.

Speaking at the IAPP global summit on privacy, AI governance and cybersecurity law, Harry called privacy a “foundational issue” that underpins the “trust, safety and the stability of our societies”.

He added: “Now, my connection to privacy, and the lack of it, begins in a different place than most. From birth.

“You may know that I’ve spent the past seven years in litigation against three media organisations in the UK over their systemic and unlawful invasions of privacy, as well as the cover-up of it, dating back to the early 2000s.”

Harry and other household names including Baroness Doreen Lawrence and Sir Elton John are waiting to hear whether they have won their High Court cases against the Daily Mail’s publisher Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) for unlawful information-gathering, which ANL strongly denies.

The trial, which ended at the High Court on Tuesday, includes allegations of voicemail interception, landline tapping and obtaining information by deception – also known as “blagging” – by private investigators, freelance journalists and ANL staff.

Harry was previously awarded £140,600 in damages by a judge from Mirror Group Newspapers in 2023 for unlawful information-gathering and settled a claim against News Group Newspapers in 2025, receiving substantial damages and a “full and unequivocal apology” for both “serious intrusion” into his private life and “unlawful activities” by The Sun.

In an ITV documentary in 2024, the duke described how his determination to fight the tabloids was a “central piece” in destroying his relationship with his family, with the “rift” in part due to his mission.

He revealed how he wished other members of the royal family had joined together with him in his campaign.

The duke has had a troubled relationship with his father the King and an ongoing rift with his brother the Prince of Wales, which worsened post-Megxit, and after the duke’s Netflix documentary and his tell-all memoir Spare.

In Washington on Tuesday, Harry insisted, as he addressed the summit from the stage, that his legal fight was “absolutely” worth it despite the “personal and reputational cost” to him, the Duchess of Sussex and their children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.

He described the “worst examples of an industry that too often behaves as though it owns people’s privacy – and feels it gets to decide what constitutes the public interest”.

“That breaches of privacy have morphed into commercial tactics across industries, notably the tech industry with innovations like social media platforms and advances in artificial intelligence.

“As you can perhaps tell, I have nothing to gain from taking on powerful institutions.

“In many ways, it comes at a personal and reputational cost for me, my wife, and our children.

“But is it worth it? Absolutely. Because this is about more than one individual – it is about the systems that shape and influence all of our lives.”

Harry insisted the “current model of technology” was “failing to support progress” and “setting it back” for communities around the globe.

The duke, whose speech lasted 21 minutes, said he had done “a deep dive into the tech-fueled world in which my children – all our children – are growing up in”.

He spoke of “harrowing stories” of how time spent on the tech giants’ platforms had led to “grave and irreversible harm”.

The duke described “seeing constant headlines about state-sponsored surveillance” and privacy breaches, and outlined how he came to see his own privacy issue as “just one small example”.

Harry said: “Simultaneously, I am seeing constant headlines about state-sponsored surveillance, doxxing of election workers and civil rights activists, and massive privacy breaches featuring social security numbers and sensitive health information.

“The more I learned the more I felt my own experience with having my privacy ‘owned’ was just one small example of the extraction problem.”

And he raised questions about how privacy will be protected in the future, saying: “Should a parent have to worry about their child’s data being sold to a predator?

“Should a person’s voice or face or innermost thoughts be irrefutably their own?

“Should a young girl have to worry that the man across the room is secretly recording and undressing her using AI through the lens of a pair of smart glasses?”

The duke said AI would “transform nearly every part of our lives” and that it offered the chance to build systems that “embed accountability, privacy, and safety into the architecture from the start” rather than retrofitting after harm has been done.

Harry has campaigned to raise awareness about the harms of social media, and the Sussexes’ foundation launched the Parents’ Network a few years ago to support families whose children have been impacted by social media.