The Information Commissioner has today published his keenly anticipated guidance on ‘Data Protection and Journalism: A Guide for the Media’.  The guidance has been published following a lengthy consultative process and in response to a recommendation made in the Leveson report. The guidance has much to say on the controversial subject of the journalistic exemption provided for under s. 32 DPA. As readers of this blog will know, section 32 largely disapplies the various obligations provided for under the DPA where the conditions provided for in s. 32(1) are met:

‘32(1)     Personal data which are processed only for the special purposes [i.e. the purposes of journalism, literature and art] are exempt from any provision to which this subsection relates if—

(a)     the processing is undertaken with a view to the publication by any person of any journalistic, literary or artistic material,

(b)     the data controller reasonably believes that, having regard in particular to the special importance of the public interest in freedom of expression, publication would be in the public interest, and

(c)     the data controller reasonably believes that, in all the circumstances, compliance with that provision is incompatible with the special purposes.’

The guidance analyses these various conditions at some length. Below are some edited highlights, along with some initial commentary.

• Meaning of ‘Journalism’ – The guidance concludes that, following the ECJ’s judgment in the Satamedia case (Case C-73/07), the concept of journalism should be ‘interpreted broadly ’. Thus, ‘It will clearly cover all output on news, current affairs, consumer affairs or sport. Taken together with art and literature, we consider it is likely to cover everything published in a newspaper or magazine, or broadcast on radio or television – in other words, the entire output of the print and broadcast media, with the exception of paid-for advertising’(p. 29). However, it will also cover the activities of citizen bloggers, insofar as they relate to public interest journalism (p. 30). Moreover ‘non-media organisations may be able to invoke the exemption. If their purpose in processing the specific information is to publish information, opinions or ideas for general public consumption, this will count as a journalistic purpose – even if they are not professional journalists and the publication forms part of a wider campaign to promote a particular cause or achieve a particular objective. However, the information must be used only for publication, and not for the organisation’s other purposes’(p. 30).

 

• Processing data ‘only for’ special purposes – The guidance effectively assumes that traditional media organisations will typically meet this requirement in respect of their data processing activities. So far as non-media organisations are concerned, it posits that they will not be able to rely on the s. 32 exemption if, in addition to processing the data for journalistic purposes, the data ‘are also used for the organisation’s other purposes – eg in political lobbying or in fundraising campaigns – the exemption will not apply’ (p. 31). [Note – this obviously begs the question of whether there is any neat dividing line between campaign-led journalism (which the Commissioner seems to think falls within the scope of s. 32) and ‘political lobbying’. It also begs the question whether traditional media organisations may themselves be engaged in political lobbying as an integral part of their publication activities].

 

• ‘With a view to publication’ – The position adopted in the guidance is that, provided that the data processing is being undertaken with ‘the ultimate aim of publishing a story’, the s. 32(1)(a) requirement is fulfilled. The guidance goes on to state ‘In short, this means that the exemption can potentially cover any information collected, created or retained as part of a journalist’s day-to-day activities, both before and after publication. However, the exemption cannot apply to anything that is not an integral part of the newsgathering and editorial process’ (p. 31). [Note – as will be apparent the guidance seems to embody a very broad approach to s. 32(1)(a)].

 

• Balancing rights – The guidance repeatedly asserts that, when handling personal data in the media context, decision-makers should be weighing the public interest in publication/pursuing the story as against the privacy rights of affected data subjects. Thus, for example, on the subject of publication, the guidance states ‘Publication is likely either to be fair and to comply with the DPA or to fall within the journalism exemption if it can be shown that someone at an appropriate level considered whether the public interest in publication outweighed individual privacy in the circumstances of the case and can give good reasons for this view when challenged’ (p. 13, emphasis added). When specifically discussing the s. 32 exemption, the guidance states: ‘You must reasonably believe publication is in the public interest – and that the public interest justifies the extent of the intrusion into private life. You must also reasonably believe that compliance with the relevant provision is incompatible with journalism. In other words, it must be impossible to comply and fulfil your journalistic purpose, or unreasonable to comply in light of your journalistic aims, having balanced the public interest in journalism against the effect upon privacy rights.’ (p. 27 emphasis added and see pp. 33-34). The guidance invites a similar balancing exercise to be conducted as and when journalists/editors are deciding whether or not to notify a data subject about the fact that their data is being collected or, further, whether or not to collect data using covert means (p. 10). [Note – this analysis is likely to be regarded as particularly controversial. This is because it arguably marks a significant departure from the language of the s. 32 exemption, which on its face seems to presuppose that the focus of the analysis is simply on whether publication is in the public interest, with no balancing of that interest as against the privacy rights of data subjects].

 

• Responsibility for applying the public interest test – That said the guidance repeatedly states that, so far as the s. 32 exemption is concerned, it is journalists/editors and not the Commissioner who are responsible for deciding what is ‘in the public interest’. The Commissioner sees his role as testing whether the decisions of the relevant journalist/editor is reasonable, albeit that the guidance also states that he will not ‘disregard [the media’s views] lightly’ (p. 35).

 

• ‘Compliance incompatible with the special purposes’ – In his original draft guidance, the Commissioner suggested that, in order to invoke s. 32, it would have to be established that compliance with the provisions of the DPA would make it impossible to fulfil the journalistic purpose (see p. 30: ‘you must decide that the provision in question would stop you from doing your job’). The final version of the guidance states that, in order for reliance to be placed on the s. 32 exemption: ‘…it must be impossible to comply and fulfil your journalistic purpose, or unreasonable to comply in light of your journalistic aims, having balanced the public interest in journalism against the effect upon privacy rights’ (p. 27, emphasis added). The underlined section of the citation indicates a more flexible test than the ‘you cannot do your job’ test suggested in the draft guidance (see further p. 37).

 

The guidance also contains the following noteworthy conclusions:

• Notification – Where media organisations are gathering data about individuals they should as a matter of course notify them of this fact, unless this is not practicable or it would undermine the journalistic activity. In deciding whether or not to notify, consideration should be given to the level of privacy intrusion resulting from the processing (pp. 9-10).

 

• Covert methods – Covert methods should be used only where this is justified in the public interest, taking into account the adverse effects on the individual’s privacy. Even if covert methods have been used, once the data has been obtained the issue of notifying the data subject should be considered (p. 10).

 

• Data retention – Data should be retained for no longer than is necessary and, any data which is retained, should be regularly reviewed in order to assess its utility. ‘Contact details and background research are a vital journalistic resource, and you are likely to want to keep them for long periods or indefinitely, even if there is no specific story in mind at present. But you are ‘processing’ personal data just by keeping it, so you must comply with the DPA’ (p. 11). [This latter conclusion represents an important concession by the Commissioner that, in the context of journalism, data archives are likely to have an ongoing utility, even if they are not being actively deployed in the context of a current story].

 

• Confidential sources – The guidance makes clear that the subject access regime cannot be used to gain access to information identifying confidential journalistic sources. Indeed, it confirms that disclosure of such information is itself likely to amount to a breach of the DPA ‘in many cases’ (p. 16).

 

• Section 55 offences– The guidance states that, where you knowingly or recklessly obtain or disclose personal data without the consent of the relevant data controller, you may be committing a criminal offence under s. 55 DPA, even if your activities fall within the scope of s. 32. This is because the public interest defence available in respect of s. 55 offences holds you to a higher standard than the standard imposed under s. 32 (p. 10).

Finally, I should add that many of the principles identified in the guidance are likely to be subject to scrutiny and debate in the context of the ongoing Steinmetz v Global Witness case (discussed here), which is now before the Commissioner .

Anya Proops

The introduction of the controversial draft Data Retention Regulations 2014 has already been discussed by my colleague Robin Hopkins in his excellent post last month. The Regulations now have the force of law, having come into force on 31 July 2014 – see the Regulations here. In his post, Robin made the point that, following the judgment in Digital Rights Ireland, there were two methods for curtailing the infringement of privacy rights presupposed by the existing communications data retention (CDR) regime: either cut back on the data retention requirements provided for under the legislation, so as generally to limit the potential for interference with privacy rights, or introduce more robust safeguards with a view to ensuring that any interference with privacy rights is proportionate and otherwise justified. The Government, which has evidently opted for the latter approach in the new Regulations, will now need to persuade a somewhat sceptical public that the safeguards which have been adopted in the legislation strike the right balance as between the protection of privacy rights on the one hand and the imperative to support criminal law enforcement functions on the other.

Notably, the Explanatory Memorandum issued with the Regulations itself constitutes a clear attempt to allay concerns that the safeguarding arrangements embodied in the legislation are insufficiently robust. Here are some edited highlights:

Meaning of communications data and its uses – ‘Communications data is the context not the content of a communication. It can be used to demonstrate who was communicating; when; from where; and with whom. It can include the time and duration of a communication, the number or email address of the originator and recipient, and sometimes the location of the device from which the communication was made. It does not include the content of any communication: for example the text of an email or a conversation on a telephone. Communications data is used by the intelligence and law enforcement agencies during investigations regarding national security and, organised and serious crime. It enables investigators to identify members of a criminal network, place them in specific locations at given times and in certain cases to understand the criminality in which they are engaged. Communications data can be vital in a wide range of threat to life investigations, including the investigation of missing persons. Communications data can be used as evidence in court.’ (para. 7.1)

The need for legislation which mandates retention – Data needs to be retained by telecoms providers so that they can be accessed and used for criminal law enforcement purposes (para. 7.2). Absent mandatory retention requirements, there can be no guarantee that telecoms providers will themselves retain communications data for a sufficiently lengthy period time. This is because, in the absence of a mandatory obligation, telecoms providers may retain data for only a few months and indeed possibly only a few days, depending on their commercial needs. However, ‘many [criminal law enforcement] investigations require data that is older than the few months that data may be retained for business purposes, particularly in ongoing investigations into offences such as child abuse and financial crime’ (para. 7.3). This is why the original domestic CDR regime embodied in the Data Retention (EC Directive) Regulations 2009 mandated retention for a period of 12 months.

New safeguards – The new Regulations ‘effectively replicate the obligations on providers contained in the 2009 Regulations, and do not provide for the retention of any additional categories of communications data’ (para. 3.3). ‘These Regulations only differ from the 2009 Regulations in that they provide additional safeguards’ (para. 7.4). Two safeguards in particular are highlighted in the Memorandum.

• the 2009 Regulations imposed a blanket 12 month retention period where a relevant notice had been served on a telecoms provider. The new Regulations enable ‘different data types to be retained for shorter periods when appropriate’ (para. 7.4).

 

• the 2009 Regulations did not embody any statutory duty on the Secretary of State to consult providers prior to issuing a notice, although consultation was in practice undertaken. The new Regulations make prior consultation a statutory obligation (para. 7.4).

The following points are worthy of note in respect of the new ‘safeguards’ embodied in the Regulations.

•  First and perhaps most significantly, the Regulations themselves do not purport to identify the types or categories of data which should to be retained for less than 12 months. They simply posit that 12 months is the maximum retention period (r. 4(2)). This leaves a significant question as to what types of data, if any, will ultimately attract a shorter retention period. The risk which is inevitably inherent in this type of open-ended legislative arrangement is that blanket, indiscriminate 12 month retention continues to be the norm.

 

• Regulation 5(1) requires the Secretary of State to take into account a variety of matters before issuing a retention notice, including not least the likely number of users who will be affected by the notice. However, such matters would presumably have been treated as relevant considerations as and when the Secretary of State was issuing a notice under the 2009 Regulations. Hence, it is not clear that this particular safeguard will add much of substance to the overall process.

 

• Similarly the requirement in r. 6 that the Secretary of State must keep any retention notice under review presumably merely codifies an obligation which was already implicitly present in the 2009 regime.

 

• Regulation 10 makes provision for a statutory code of practice on data retention to be issued by the Secretary of State. It is unclear whether this code may yet shed further light on how the Secretary of State intends to exercise her powers under this highly controversial legislation.

 

• More generally, there must be serious doubts that the safeguards embodied in the new Regulations are sufficient to meet the deep concerns expressed by the CJEU in the Digital Rights case. Of course it might be said that the real danger to personal privacy arises not in the context of the data retention regime per se but rather in the context of those legislative powers which permit the State to access any communications data which have been retained, most notably the powers provided for in RIPA. However, whatever position you may adopt on that particular line of argument, suffice it to say that the question of whether the State should be entitled, in effect, to create a vast reservoir of potentially accessible communications data still hangs in the balance, the new safeguards in the Data Retention Regulations notwithstanding.

Anya Proops

Readers of this blog will already be familiar with the ways in which data protection legislation is assuming increasing importance in both the media and technology worlds. Certainly if there were any doubt as to the relevance of this legislation to the way in which both the media and technology companies operate, that doubt was firmly laid to rest following the highly controversial judgment of the CJEU in Google Spain. That judgment has led to extensive debates about the so-called right to be forgotten (as to which see here the recent ITN debate on Google Spain, in which I participated along withthe Information Commissioner and Google’s Spain’s Director of Communications for EMEA). However, the judgment was important, not only because of what it said about the right to be forgotten, but also because of the way in which it managed, in effect, to bring the data processing activities of a large US-based corporation, namely Google Inc, within the territorial scope of the EU Directive. In short, the Court held that personal data which is processed by a search engine operated by a US company is still protected under the Directive, particularly because the search engine is itself commercially supported by advertising which had been sold within Europe by EU-based subsidiary companies, including Google Spain.

The CJEU’s judgment in Google Spain has now been specifically relied upon in English High Court proceedings to support an application for service out of the jurisdiction, on Google Inc, of a set of proceedings brought under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA): Hegglin v Google Inc & Ors.

According to the Lawtel case report of the Hegglin judgment, Mr Hegglin is an individual who is resident in Hong Kong, but has previously lived in and retained closed connections with the UK. An anonymous person posted abusive and defamatory material concerning Mr Hegglin on a number of websites which were then indexed on Google. Mr Hegglin went on to bring proceedings against Google Inc under the DPA, including claims under s. 10 (right to prevent processing likely to cause substantial damage or distress) and s. 14 (right to rectification). He sought an injunction requiring Google Inc to block specific sites containing the allegations and a Norwich Pharmacal order was made.  Relying specifically on Google Spain, Bean J held that service of the DPA proceedings could properly be effected on Google Inc. He also held that England was the appropriate forum for the dispute and was also suitable for the trial, particularly as the defamatory remarks risked damage to Mr Hegglin’s reputation in England.

Of course, this is not the first time that the court has permitted proceedings to be served on Google Inc under the DPA. In January 2014, the High Court held that proceedings for compensation under s. 13 DPA could properly be served on Google Inc in connection with its act of collating data from Google-users based in the UK: see Vidal-Hall v Google Inc [2014] EWHC 13 (QB) (which you can read about here). However importantly, in Vidal-Hall, which was decided before Google Spain, Google Inc accepted that it was a data controller in respect of the data originating from the claimants’ browsers. It merely disputed that the data in question amounted to ‘personal data’ for the purposes of s. 1 (see paras. 121-122 of the judgment). Thus, territorial jurisdiction was not ostensibly in issue in Vidal-Hall.

What remains to be seen now is how far the Google Spain judgment will now also be relied upon as against other corporations which are based outside the EU but which use EU subsidiaries to provide commercial support for their activities.

Anya Proops

Following on from my post earlier today on Niebel, readers may like to note that Jon Baines’s excellent blog, Information Rights and Wrongs has an interesting and detailed analysis of the Mansfield v John Lewis case – see here. The article suggests that Mr Mansfield’s damages may have garnered him the princely sum of £10!

As readers of this blog will know, the application of the Government’s criminal records scheme has been subject to extensive litigation of late (see further not least my post on an appeal involving a teacher and my post on an appeal involving a taxi-driver). Perhaps most importantly, in the case of T & Anor v Secretary of State for the Home Department, questions have been raised about whether the scheme as a whole is compatible with Convention rights and, in particular, the Article 8 right to privacy. Last year, the Court of Appeal concluded that the scheme was incompatible (see further Christopher Knight’s analysis of the Court’s judgment here). In a judgment given yesterday, the majority of the Supreme Court has agreed with that conclusion (Lord Wilson dissenting). The judgment will no doubt be subject to further analysis on Panopticon over the next few days. However, in short, the Supreme Court held that:

(a)    warnings and cautions given to the appellants by the police engaged their Article 8 right to privacy

(b)    the disclosure of those warnings and cautions in enhanced criminal records certificates (ECRCs) issued under the scheme amounted to an interference with the appellants’ right to privacy,  particularly as it affected their ability to enter a particular chosen field of endeavour, for example their ability to secure particular jobs and

(c)    the interference could not be justified under Article 8(2), particularly because the indiscriminate manner in which such information was provided under the scheme was not ‘in accordance with law’ for the purposes of Article 8(2), was not ‘necessary in a democratic society’ and was not otherwise proportionate.

On the latter point, the majority of the Supreme Court was clearly concerned about the fact that, in the context of ECRCs, warnings and cautions could be included in the relevant certificate irrespective of the nature of the offence, how the case had been disposed of, the time which had elapsed since the offence took place, the relevance of the data to the employment sought and the absence of any mechanism for independent review of a decision to disclose data. The majority of the Supreme Court evidently regarded the case of T as perfectly illustrative of the dangers inherent in such an indiscriminate scheme. In T, an ECRC was issued in respect of T containing information concerning police warnings which T had received when he was 11, in connection with the theft of bicycles. In the majority’s view, it was entirely unnecessary for such information to be disclosed when T applied, aged 17, for a job which involved working with children and also when he applied, aged 19, to attend university. The majority also refused the appeal against the Court of Appeal’s declaration of incompatibility in respect of the relevant primary legislation, namely the Police Act 1997.

What we see with this judgment, as with many judgments concerning the application of Convention rights, is a reluctant to favour blanket, administratively convenient solutions over more nuanced individual-centred schemes.

11KBW’s Jason Coppel QC acted for the Secretary of State. Tim Pitt-Payne QC appeared on behalf of Liberty.

Anya Proops