The use of drones and the growth of revenge pornography websites are among issues that have prompted South Australian legal experts to call for beefed up privacy laws.
The SA Law Reform Institute is recommending the state government establish a civil law, with a public interest test, to cover serious invasions of privacy in the digital era.
"The right to be left alone, it's not as protected as we often think it is," Adelaide Law School professor John Williams told AAP on Tuesday.
"Everyone with a mobile phone is a publisher these days. The capacity for your privacy to be invaded through the use of technology is at a rate which didn't exist 40 years ago."
The public interest test would attempt to balance the right to privacy with freedom of speech.
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"Footage secretly obtained for a television program that exposes animal cruelty will arguably be in the public interest," Prof Williams said.
"But intimate footage that is recorded by individuals and then shared without consent would constitute a serious breach of personal privacy."
Prof Williams said current protections were piecemeal or patchwork with some criminal sanctions to prevent trespassing on property but none to outlaw digital snooping.
