Newspapers remove Royal's holiday photos following privacy complaint

The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mirror, Daily Mail and The Sun all published pictures of Princess Beatrice on her holiday in the French Riviera in the print edition of the papers on 21 June and also posted the images on their websites.

Princess Beatrice complained to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) that the pictures had been taken "in places where she had a reasonable expectation of privacy," the watchdog said in its complaint resolution notice.

The PCC said the newspapers refuted that the Princess did have a reasonable expectation of privacy in those locations, but the complaint was "resolved" when the papers nevertheless "agreed to remove the photographs from their websites and [gave] an assurance that they would not be republished".

Under the Editors' Code of Practice newspapers must consider that the subjects of stories have a right to "respect for his or her private and family life, home, health and correspondence, including digital communications". Under the Code editors must be able to "justify intrusions in any individual's private life without consent". The Code also describes photographing individuals in "public or private property where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy" without consent as "unacceptable".

In exceptional circumstances breaches of the Code's rules on privacy can be justified if "they can be demonstrated to be in the public interest".

The Editors' Code is a set of self-regulatory standards journalists should observe when reporting and includes rules on accuracy, intrusion into grief and secret recordings.

The PCC can 'name and shame' publications that break the Code and ask them to publish apologies, but it has no legal powers to enforce punishments such as fines for violations of the Code.