All data protection claims issued after 1 October 2019 will now have to be issued in the new, formal, Media and Communications List of the High Court. On that date, a new Part 53 of the CPR will take effect – set out in the Schedule to the Civil Procedure (Amendment No. 3) Rules 2019 – along with two new Practice Directions. Continue reading →

What sort of grounds of challenge can be run on an appeal against a monetary penalty notice issued by the Information Commissioner? Where the Tribunal has a full merits jurisdiction, is there scope for grounds of challenge relating to the process by which the MPN was reached? Continue reading →

How is jurisdiction determined in a claim for breach of the GDPR? We know the rule in Article 79(2) GPDR. But how does that interplay with the ordinary private international law rules of jurisdiction, set out in Brussels I Recast Regulation: Regulation (EU) 1215/2012? What about where the controller seeks to rely on a jurisdiction agreement, which under Article 25 of the Brussels I Recast Regulation, would take priority? Continue reading →

On 9 July the CJEU will hear oral submissions by the parties in Case C-311/18 Facebook Ireland & Schrems, in which the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (not Mr Schrems) is seeking to invalidate the Commission’s Decisions setting out standard contractual clauses. The basis for that attempt is the ability of national security bodies in the USA to gain access to personal data transferred to the US from the EU under SCCs. The fact that SCCs apply generally to all international transfers, and not just to the USA, is a point which has not eluded most of the other parties involved before the CJEU. Nonetheless it is likely that there will be some degree of comment from the CJEU on the Privacy Shield mechanism as part of the context to the issues. Continue reading →

Ever fancied being a wing member of an Information Rights Tribunal? Well, for ten lucky applicants, your dreams can come true. Panopticon’s attention has been drawn to a Judicial Appointments Commission application process which opens in August (and closes in September) for ten new Information Rights lay members. You can find the details here. Appointees will sit in the First-tier Tribunal, and occasionally the Upper Tribunal, to hear FOIA, EIR and DPA appeals. Non-lawyer readers of this blog – and we know you are out there – should consider applying.

Christopher Knight

Sometimes the Easter Bunny comes bearing mysteriously non-egg shaped gifts to the data protection practitioner. The judgment of the always-worth-reading Warby J in Rudd v Bridle & J&S Bridle Ltd [2019] EWHC 893 (QB) is just such a delivery, albeit that this one appears to contain a high content of asbestos. Continue reading →