Speaking as part of an Intelligence Squared debate on privacy and the press, Ken MacDonald QC said freedom of speech and privacy were increasingly becoming competing rights.
"Is our privacy law and the way it's developing striking an appropriate balance between the right to privacy and freedom of expression?" asked MacDonald, former director of public prosecutions.
"It's one thing to limit freedom of expression in circumstances so extreme that we have no other choice (...) but those circumstances really better be extreme. It's quite another to risk a chilling effect simply because of the desire of a celeb, who lives by pictures of his face, to take exception to some.
"Extreme cases will make bad law and faced with this law editors and journalists will become overcautious, leading to less investigative journalism and "more self-censorship of influential individuals", he argued.
Fellow panellist and investigative journalist Tom Bower, who successfully defended a libel suit brought against him by Express Newspapers owner Richard Desmond, said the media has "too little power, not too much", when it comes to probing the private lives of public figures.
"The rich and the famous and the powerful and the people who seek to influence our lives, their goings on are in the public interest (...) This country's use of privacy is now being used by people who would before have sued the law of libel. The courts have allowed people to blur libel (...) with privacy," he said.
Referring to Max Mosley, who also took part in the debate and won a privacy case and damages from the News of the World in 2008, Bower said the former racing chief's case showed that the privacy of public figures is already protected from the press.
Mosley used his speech in the debate 'The private lives of public figures deserve more protection from the press' to criticise the role of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) and chairman of the Editors' Code of Practice Committee and editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, who said Mosley had taken part "in acts of unimaginable sexual depravity" in his 2008 Society of Editors' conference speech.
"It begs the question of what is ordinary depravity? Apparently it's leaving the light on (...) A man like that [Paul Dacre] is allowed to 'kill' you," said Mosley, arguing that newspaper editors want to set their own definitions of what is private and what is in the public interest.
Only a tiny minority can afford to take advantage of privacy laws and injunctions, he said: "What we should have is a PCC that's independent, has the power to impose decisions on newspapers and is free."
But Mosley said he was "very content" with existing UK privacy law, adding that it should be the responsibility of judges and not editors to make decisions on privacy and the public interest.
"It's only with prior notification that a judge decides who has access to your private life and not a newspaper editor," said Mosley.
Fellow speaker and lawyer for Schillings Rachel Atkins added that privacy is protected as a human right and should not be breached by "the commercial decision to publish or not".
But both Atkins and MacDonald agreed that online publishing presents a sizable challenge to privacy and privacy law.
"We're finally giving up and you have to expect a jury to try information fairly (...) Policing the internet is really an unmanageable task," said MacDonald.
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