Are you thinking what I’m linking? Liability for hyperlinks

Posted on | by Leo Davidson

Many users of the internet know all too well the hidden dangers of hyperlinks.  Now the European Court of Human Rights has considered the extent to which those posting links are responsible for the third party content being linked to, in Magyar Jeti Zrt v Hungary (Case no. 11257/16).

In 2013, a Hungarian politician drew a link between racist assaults by football fans and Jobbik, a right-wing Hungarian political party.  A recording of his remarks was uploaded to YouTube.  When reporting the story, 444.hu – a news website operated by the applicant company – included a hyperlink to the recording, without repeating the defamatory content in the body of their article. Continue reading →

Brexit and Data Protection: Update

Posted on | by Christopher Knight

Panopticon has generally avoided venturing too far into Brexit-related updates: there has invariably been very little by way of actual facts to comment on (not that that has stopped people). But 14 November 2018 does mark something of a landmark, even if by the time you read this it may well all have collapsed like a particularly badly made soufflé. By the time you watch the repeat on Dave it may look like a legal history article. Here goes nothing… Continue reading →

Vicarious liability for data breaches: Court of Appeal dismisses Morrisons’ challenge

Posted on | by Robin Hopkins

Large-scale civil litigation is one of the developing contours of data protection law. Last week’s judgment in Lloyd v Google – a novel representative action based on allegedly unlawful processing activities – is one illustration. When it comes to group litigation on the back of a data breach, our best illustration thus far is the groundbreaking group action against Morrisons. Continue reading →

Inconsequential data protection breaches: High Court blocks big-money action against Google

Posted on | by Robin Hopkins

Popular impressions of data protection range from the tedious (“the GDPR forces me to get consent for everything”) to the apocalyptic (“if you breach the GDPR, you will automatically get multi-million pound fine”, etc.). A common apocalyptic theme is that contraventions affecting large numbers of individuals may well trigger financially ruinous group litigation. They might. But this morning’s judgment of Warby J in Lloyd v Google [2018] EWHC 2599 (QB) is an important corrective to apocalyptic thinking. Continue reading →