# Defamation laws by country, compared Defamation laws by country: the test, the clock and the removal route in the UK, US, EU, Australia and Canada, read from the primary sources. --- Defamation laws by country differ on four things that decide your case: what you must prove, how long you have, who can be pursued (the author, the publisher, the platform or the search engine), and what a court can order. A false statement that is actionable in England or Australia can meet a much harder road in the United States, where a federal statute shields most platforms from claims over user posts, and the European Union adds a separate privacy route whose grounds do not depend on the statement being false. This article reads the primary legal source for each place it covers: the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union under GDPR, Australia and Canada. It does not try to cover every country, and it shows how the rules fit together when one post is published in one country, hosted in a second and read in a third. Where a rule is not stated here, it is because its source could not be read for this guide. This is information, not legal advice. Law changes, facts matter, and your own counsel in the right country decides what applies to you. What follows is a map: it tells you which questions to ask, in which order, and which clocks to check first.
The short version
## Four questions settle every defamation case in every country Every jurisdiction below answers the same four questions. First, the test: what must the claimant show for a statement to count as defamatory. Second, the clock: how long after publication a claim can be brought. Third, the target: who is liable for content that someone else wrote. Fourth, the remedy: damages, a correction, a takedown order, or a de-listing. The table keeps to what was read: a "not read" is more useful than a guess, because a wrong clock is the most expensive mistake in this field.
PlaceCore testClock readPlatform liability
England and WalesSerious harm to reputation, section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013One year, Limitation Act 1980 section 4AWebsite operator defence in section 5, with a notice of complaint step
ScotlandSerious harm, section 1 of the 2021 Act, in force 8 August 2022One year, section 18A of the 1973 Act as amendedNot read
Northern IrelandNot read; the 2013 Act extends to England and Wales onlyOne year, Limitation (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 article 6(2)Not read
United StatesConstitutional floor from the Supreme Court (Sullivan); state tests not readSet by each state, not readBroad federal shield for user content, 47 U.S.C. 230
European UnionNational law of each member state; GDPR erasure runs alongsideOne month to answer an erasure requestSearch engine duties addressed in Google Spain, C-131/12; hosts not read
New South Wales, AustraliaSerious harm, section 10AOne year, Limitation Act 1969 section 14B; concerns notice and a 28 day period before suingNot read
CanadaCriminal libel defined in Criminal Code section 298; Quebec private law is civil law, the other provinces common law; provincial defamation tests not readNot readFederal privacy law applies to a search engine, per the courts as summarized by the regulator
The table shows that England and Wales, Scotland and New South Wales share a serious harm test, and every place with a defamation clock we read sets it at one year. The United States adds a federal platform shield and a constitutional floor, with state law not read. The EU texts we read harmonize data protection, not defamation, which is why the privacy route matters so much in Europe. The limitation period looks long next to the response windows, and the shorter windows are the ones that get missed.
Clocks confirmed in the sources, in daysOne year taken as 365 days, one month taken as 30 days; width is days divided by 365, rounded. Different kinds of clock, shown on one scale for proportion only.
England and Wales limitation period365 days
Erasure request answer (GDPR, UK GDPR)30 days
NSW concerns notice period28 days
NSW time to give further particulars14 days

Sources: Limitation Act 1980 section 4A; the ICO guidance on erasure and GDPR recital 59; Defamation Act 2005 (NSW) sections 12A and 14. The one year limits in Scotland, Northern Ireland and New South Wales equal the first bar. The other clocks in this guide are not charted.

## United Kingdom: serious harm, a one year clock and a single publication rule In England and Wales a statement is not defamatory unless its publication has caused, or is likely to cause, serious harm to the claimant's reputation. That is section 1(1) of the Defamation Act 2013, which the legislation.gov.uk text marks as extending to England and Wales and which came into force on 1 January 2014. Section 17(2) of the Act states that it extends to England and Wales only, so Scotland and Northern Ireland sit outside it. Section 1(2) adds a harder rule for a body that trades for profit: harm to its reputation is not serious harm unless it has caused, or is likely to cause, serious financial loss. ### England and Wales: the clock and the republication rule The time limit is one year. Section 4A of the Limitation Act 1980 says no action for libel or slander may be brought after one year from the date the cause of action accrued, and it disapplies the general limitation rule for those claims. Section 8 of the Defamation Act 2013 makes that harder to escape. Where a person publishes a statement to the public and later publishes the same or a substantially similar statement, the later publication is treated, for the limitation period, as accruing on the date of the first publication. The exception is where the manner of the later publication is materially different, and the court may weigh how prominent the later publication is and how far it reaches. Section 8 also keeps the court's discretion under section 32A of the Limitation Act. ### England and Wales: who can be pursued The Act has a provision for operators of websites, and it applies in England and Wales only. Under section 5, it is a defence for the operator to show it did not post the statement. The defence is defeated if the claimant shows three things: it was not possible to identify the poster, meaning the claimant lacks enough information to bring proceedings against that person; the claimant gave the operator a notice of complaint; and the operator failed to respond as the regulations require. The defence is also lost if the operator acted with malice, and moderating other statements does not by itself defeat it. A notice of complaint must state the complainant's name, set out the statement, explain why it is defamatory and say where on the website it appears. Section 5 sets those required contents, so a notice that leaves one out does not meet the statute. ### Scotland: the same idea in a separate Act Scotland has its own statute, and the 2013 Act does not reach it. Section 1 of the Defamation and Malicious Publication (Scotland) Act 2021 says a right to bring proceedings arises only if the statement was published to someone other than the person defamed and its publication has caused, or is likely to cause, serious harm to reputation. For a non-natural person whose primary purpose is trading for profit, harm is not serious unless it has caused or is likely to cause serious financial loss. A statement is defamatory if it tends to lower a person's reputation in the estimation of ordinary persons. The section came into force on 8 August 2022. The Scottish limitation period is one year. Section 32 of the 2021 Act amended section 18A of the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973, cutting the period for defamation actions from three years to one, and it applies a single publication rule: a claim over a substantially similar later publication is treated as accruing on the date of the first, unless the later publication is materially different in manner. That change came into force on 8 August 2022. We state no Scottish rule on platforms. Northern Ireland has its own limitation order. Article 6(2) of the Limitation (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 says an action for libel or slander may not be brought after one year from the date the cause of action accrued. We did not read Northern Ireland's substantive defamation law, and the 2013 Act does not extend there, so do not assume the England and Wales tests apply. ### UK GDPR: the privacy route next to defamation The UK also has a data protection route. The Information Commissioner's guidance on the right to erasure says the right is not absolute and applies in situations such as when the data is no longer needed for its purpose, when consent is withdrawn, when the individual objects and there is no overriding interest, or when the data was processed unlawfully. It also lists the exceptions, which include processing necessary to exercise freedom of expression and information. The organization must respond within one month, and may extend by two further months for complex requests if it tells the individual within the first month. The grounds do not require a false statement. ## United States: the shield for platforms and the wall for foreign judgments The United States is the outlier, and two federal statutes explain why. The first protects platforms. Section 230(c)(1) of Title 47 of the United States Code provides that providers and users of an interactive computer service are not treated as the publisher or speaker of information provided by another information content provider. Section 230(c)(2) protects good-faith voluntary action to restrict material the provider considers objectionable. The definition does the quiet work. An information content provider is anyone responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of the information. A platform that hosts a user's post is generally protected for it. The person who wrote the post is not. A claim generally has to go to the author, not to the site that hosts the post. ### What the shield does not cover Section 230(e) lists limits. The shield does not impair enforcement of federal criminal statutes, and it does not limit or expand any law pertaining to intellectual property. The second limit is why a copyright route can work against a site where a defamation route cannot: a photograph you took and someone reposted without permission is an intellectual property problem, not a defamation problem. The federal statutes above do not set a defamation test or a clock, and we did not read a state source, so we state no state test and no limitation number. What we did read is the constitutional floor. In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), the Supreme Court held that a public official cannot recover damages for a defamatory falsehood about official conduct unless he proves actual malice, meaning the statement was made with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. That decision concerned public officials; check what applies to anyone else in your state. ### Foreign judgments: 28 U.S.C. section 4102 The second statute matters most to readers outside the country. Under 28 U.S.C. 4102, a United States court may not recognize or enforce a foreign defamation judgment unless the party seeking enforcement proves specific conditions. The foreign law must have given at least as much protection for speech and press in that case as the First Amendment and the law of the state where the court sits, or the person resisting enforcement would have been held liable by a United States court applying those standards. The foreign court's exercise of personal jurisdiction must also have satisfied United States due process. For a judgment against an interactive computer service provider, the court must find it consistent with section 230 as if the information had been published in the United States. The consequence is blunt: if you win a judgment in England or Australia against a publisher whose assets and servers are in the United States, you may not be able to enforce it there. Subsection (d) says appearing in the foreign case does not stop a party from opposing enforcement. Before you fund a claim abroad, ask where the defendant is and what can be enforced against them. ## European Union: GDPR erasure beside national defamation laws The EU did not write one defamation law. Defamation, including the test, the clock and any criminal offence, stays with each member state. What the EU did write is the General Data Protection Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2016/679, adopted on 27 April 2016 and in force from 24 May 2016. For a person whose name is in search results, the GDPR is often the more useful instrument. ### Article 17: grounds and exceptions Article 17(1) gives a data subject the right to obtain erasure from the controller without undue delay where one of six grounds applies: the data is no longer necessary for the purposes it was collected for; consent is withdrawn and there is no other legal ground; the person objects under Article 21(1) and there are no overriding legitimate grounds, or objects under Article 21(2); the data was unlawfully processed; erasure is required by a legal obligation under Union or member state law; or the data was collected to offer information society services under Article 8(1). Article 17(3) says paragraphs 1 and 2 do not apply to the extent processing is necessary for exercising freedom of expression and information, for a legal obligation or a public interest task, for certain public health purposes, for archiving, research or statistics where erasure would seriously impair those aims, and for establishing, exercising or defending legal claims. We read Article 17 as adopted on legislation.gov.uk, because the EUR-Lex page did not return it in full. The recitals on EUR-Lex add, in recital 59, that a controller should respond to a data subject's request without undue delay and at the latest within one month, and, in recital 153, that member state law should reconcile the rules on freedom of expression and information with data protection, that processing solely for journalistic purposes can receive exemptions or derogations, and that notions such as journalism should be interpreted broadly. ### Press archives and search engines Against a newspaper archive, the Article 17(3)(a) exception and the journalistic derogations in recital 153 give the publisher strong ground to resist. The 2014 Grand Chamber judgment of the Court of Justice in Google Spain, case C-131/12, concerned the responsibility of search engine operators for links to pages published by third parties that contain personal data. What matters for this comparison is the framing: a personal-data complaint can be built around the search listing for your name as well as the underlying page. ### Criminal defamation in Europe A 2017 comparative study of the OSCE region, prepared for the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, found that 42 of the 57 participating states maintain general criminal defamation laws and 15 had repealed them, the United Kingdom and Ireland among the 15. It is a March 2017 snapshot, and its stated purpose is to identify relevant provisions in law, not to study legal practice. In many of those states the same post can be a civil wrong and a criminal offence. That changes strategy: where a criminal route exists, a prosecutor, not you, controls the case. ## Australia: serious harm, and a notice you must give first In New South Wales, section 10A of the Defamation Act 2005 makes it an element of defamation that the publication has caused, or is likely to cause, serious harm to the reputation of the person. For a corporation that is not excluded, harm must also cause or be likely to cause serious financial loss, and a judicial officer, not a jury, decides the serious harm element. Each state and territory has its own Act, so we cite New South Wales and do not claim the others match it. ### The concerns notice: the step people skip The strongest feature of the Australian procedure is that you cannot simply sue. Section 12A requires a concerns notice in writing that identifies where the matter can be accessed, lists the imputations the person considers it carries and describes the serious harm. If the notice is inadequate, the publisher may ask for further particulars, and the person has 14 days, or a longer agreed period, to provide them; if they do not, they are taken not to have given a valid concerns notice. Under section 12B(1), proceedings cannot start unless a concerns notice was given and the applicable period for an offer to make amends has elapsed. Under section 14(2)(b), the default period is 28 days from when the publisher received the notice, and where particulars were requested and provided late it runs 14 days from when the publisher receives them. A well-built concerns notice is the opening move and a precondition. It also gives the publisher a window to make an offer to make amends, which can end the matter without a hearing. ### The limitation clock sits in a different Act In New South Wales the limitation period is in section 14B of the Limitation Act 1969: an action for defamation is not maintainable after one year running from the date of publication. A concerns notice given within the 56 days before that period expires extends it by 56 days minus any days remaining after the notice day, and section 56A lets a court extend the period to up to three years from publication. Other states and territories have their own Acts, which we did not read. ## Canada: criminal libel, a provincial civil system and a live de-listing question Canada is the least uniform of the five, and we read less of it. The federal Criminal Code, in section 298(1), defines a defamatory libel as matter published without lawful justification or excuse that is likely to injure the reputation of any person by exposing him to hatred, contempt or ridicule, or that is designed to insult the person of or concerning whom it is published. Canada has two private law systems. Justice Canada states that private law in Quebec is based on civil law and that the other provinces use common law. We could not read a provincial defamation statute or a leading decision for this guide, so we give no civil test and no clock. If your case touches Canada, a Canadian lawyer must give you the clock before anything else. ### The privacy side: a Commissioner's finding on search results What we could read is the privacy track. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada made its findings public in a complaint about Google's search engine on 27 August 2025 (PIPEDA Findings 2025-002). The complaint alleged that articles appearing in Google search results for the complainant's name caused personal harm. The findings record that the Federal Court, in July 2021, found that Google is subject to PIPEDA and does not operate its search engine solely for journalistic purposes, and that the Federal Court of Appeal, in September 2023, upheld that decision. On the merits, the Commissioner found the accuracy principle was not contravened, because the duty covers search results and snippets, not the article content. The Commissioner found the appropriate purpose rule in subsection 5(3) was contravened, because the significant harm to the complainant's safety and dignity outweighed the limited public interest in the articles appearing in a search for the name. The complaint was found well-founded and unresolved on that point. The Commissioner recommended that Google de-list the articles from a search for the complainant's name, and Google did not agree. The Office's timeline of events records that it filed a Notice of Application with the Federal Court on 26 August 2026, seeking an order requiring Google to take steps to respect individuals' right to have certain information de-listed from search results for their name, in limited circumstances. Google's position, as summarized in the findings, is that the courts should decide whether PIPEDA provides a de-listing right. So the right is argued, not settled. Treat it as a live route for a narrow set of facts, not a promise. ## Which route fits which problem: a decision table Choose the route from the problem, not from the country you live in.
RouteWhat it can changeSpeedCost level and risk
Correction request to the publisherThe article itself, by correction, update or removalDays to weeksLow cost; low risk if factual and polite
Platform reportA post that breaks the platform's rules, not a post that is merely falseDays to weeksLow cost; a refusal ends the route
Concerns notice or legal letterA publisher's decision to correct, and the start of a claimWeeksMedium cost; can draw attention to the post
Data protection request (erasure or de-listing)A listing for your name, or data held by an organizationOne month to answer, longer if extendedLow to medium cost; the freedom of expression exception can defeat it
Court claimDamages, and in some systems an order to removeMonths to yearsHigh cost; enforcement abroad may fail
Three rules sit under that table. Start with the cheapest route that reaches the right target. Send nothing formal until you have dated captures of the page. And watch every clock, because the shortest one usually closes first. ### Worked scenario: one post, three countries Take an invented case: a founder in England is described in a false statement on a blog run by an individual in the United States, hosted by a company in Ireland, and found by readers in Australia through a search engine. An English claim fits the one year clock and the serious harm test, but a judgment against the blogger may not be enforceable in the United States if the conditions in 28 U.S.C. 4102 are not met. Section 230 protects a United States platform for the blogger's words, so a defamation letter to a platform there is likely to go nowhere. The Irish host is subject to the GDPR, but an erasure request about the blog's content runs into the Article 17(3)(a) exception. The Australian reader arrives through a search engine, so the founder can ask that engine to de-list under its own policies and the law that applies to it. The result is a sequence: a factual correction request to the blogger, a de-listing request where a data protection route exists, and an English claim only if something reachable can be enforced against and the founder accepts the cost. ## What a defamation claim will not do for your search results A successful defamation claim changes the law's view of a statement. It does not, by itself, change what a search engine shows. If the page is removed, the listing eventually follows once the engine recrawls; a de-listing request targets the listing and leaves the page online. Most files need a source-level action where the statement is wrong and a search-level action where a lawful basis for de-listing exists. Where the information is accurate, lawful and in the public interest, neither route is a fit, and we say so early. ## How a cross-border file usually runs, step by step The timing below is typical experience, not a promise: courts, publishers and search engines set their own pace, and statutory clocks come first.
A realistic timeline for a cross-border file
  1. Days 1 to 3: map the publicationList the URL, publisher, host, author if known, date of first publication and every copy. Take dated captures first.
  2. Days 3 to 7: choose the law and check the clocksDecide which country's rules fit the publisher and the harm. Get the limitation date from counsel there before anything is sent, and note any mandatory notice period.
  3. Weeks 1 to 3: ask the simplest target firstA correction request to the publisher, or a rules-based report to the platform. A refusal tells you what the next step must prove.
  4. Weeks 3 to 6: formal notice or data requestWhere the law needs a notice (a concerns notice in New South Wales, a notice of complaint to a website operator in England) or a data protection request, send it with every required element. A data request normally gets an answer within one month.
  5. Months 2 to 4: decide on a claimWeigh cost, enforceability and the risk of drawing attention to the post.
  6. Months 4 onward: follow through at the search levelWhere a page is removed or corrected, check that the listing updates. Where it stays, plan lawful, accurate pages that outrank it.
If search results are the real problem, our work starts there. The page on removing negative content describes how we handle the source level, and the suppression service covers the search level for what cannot be removed. ## Mistakes that make a legal route fail Most failed files fail on a few avoidable errors. The first is aiming at the wrong target. A platform shielded by section 230 has little reason to remove a post only because a lawyer's letter says it is false. The second is sending a notice that lacks required content: a concerns notice that does not state the serious harm, or a notice of complaint that does not say where the statement is, does not meet the statute. The third is the Streisand effect: a visible legal fight over a small post can produce a larger article about the fight. The fourth is calling accurate information false. The fifth is an adviser promising a removal, which no honest adviser can, because the decision belongs to a publisher, a platform, a regulator or a court. ## Your next step: pick one route and set the clock Pick the first route from the decision table, write the date of first publication at the top of a page, and put the shortest clock next to it. That page, with the URL, author, host and country, is what any lawyer will ask for first.
If this is happening to you now

If a false or unlawful statement is live and you are not sure which country's rules apply, send Reputation Partners the URL and the date it appeared. We read the file, tell you which route fits and which clock runs first, and say plainly when a route will fail. Start with a private audit.

## Questions people ask ### Can a true statement be defamatory? In England and Wales, section 2 of the Defamation Act 2013 gives a defence where the imputation the statement conveys is substantially true, so a true statement is not actionable there on that ground. We did not read the rule for the other places. A true statement can still be a privacy problem, because the Article 17 grounds do not turn on falsehood. Ask counsel in the right country before assuming either way. ### Can I sue a website in another country? You can start a claim where a court accepts jurisdiction, but the question that matters is enforcement. In the United States, a foreign defamation judgment faces the conditions in 28 U.S.C. 4102, and a platform is generally shielded for user posts by section 230. ### What is the difference between a defamation claim and a privacy request? Defamation asks whether a statement harms reputation and, in the systems we read, whether it is defensible, for example because it is substantially true. A privacy or data protection request asks whether an organization may keep and show personal data. The second does not need falsehood, but it has its own exceptions, including freedom of expression, and a response clock of one month under the UK and EU frameworks we read. ### Do I need a lawyer to send a concerns notice or a notice of complaint? Both notices have required contents set by statute: section 5 for a notice of complaint in England and Wales, section 12A for a concerns notice in New South Wales. In New South Wales, if you do not answer a request for further particulars within 14 days, you are taken not to have given a valid concerns notice. Having counsel check the draft is a small cost next to a missed clock.