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The judgment of Warby J in NT1 & NT2 v Google LLC [2018] EWHC 799 (QB) – the first (and second) right to be forgotten trials in England and Wales – has now been handed down. You can read it here and there is a summary here. Who wins? It’s a 1-1 draw, with Google winning on the facts of NT1 and losing on the facts of NT2. Continue reading →

Ok so hands up whose email inbox has recently been littered with emails inviting you to consent to receiving marketing communications or otherwise inviting you to update your marketing preferences. ‘Why is this happening?’ you may well ask? Well it’s happening because companies which want to be able to send you lots of nice marketing material for now and evermore are worried that, when the GDPR comes into force, with its new much stricter rules on consent, they won’t be able to send you such invitations and will get into trouble with the ICO if they do so. Which raises the interesting question of whether sending such emails is itself permissible under the existing legislative regime. Continue reading →

The Upper Tribunal’s most recent judgment – IC v Malnick and ACOBA (GIA/447/2017) – is a rare thing these days: a binding decision that makes a meaningful and general (rather than fact-specific) contribution to FOIA jurisprudence. In particular, it tells us (1) how to assess the reasonableness of a qualified person’s opinion for section 36 FOIA purposes, and (2) whether the FTT can remit a case to the ICO for a fresh decision if it allows an appeal. Continue reading →

It all seems a long time ago that the CJEU handed down its judgment in Google Spain and inculcated the right to be forgotten doesn’t it? Commentators – including here and here – opined with varying degrees of wailing and gnashing of teeth about the implications of it, and how endless litigation was anticipated. But there hasn’t been all that much. The lion has been sleeping so far.  Continue reading →

Only the most selective readers working in the legal sector (and no readers of this blog) can have failed to hear something about the impending changes to data protection law, the most significant in 20 years. From 25 May 2018, the new General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) will take effect across the EU. The equivalent directive applicable to data protection in the law enforcement context will take effect on 6 May. Both are to be implemented and given effect in domestic law by the Data Protection Act 2018, which is currently making its way through Parliament and will replace the Data Protection Act 1998.

There will be few contracts for the provision of procured services which will not involve the supplier engaging in some processing of personal data, be that of end-user customers or of employees of the procuring public body. All public contracts ought to contain some treatment of data protection issues, which outline the allocation of responsibilities between the parties and the standards required of the supplier. Continue reading →

It appears from recent media reports that a prosecution brought by the ICO against Hiscox under s. 56 DPA 1998 collapsed last week after the ICO’s key prosecution witness fell ill. – see the FT’s coverage here and the report in Insurance Age here. The prosecution was apparently brought under s. 56 DPA(2) which makes it an offence for goods or service providers to make the provision of goods or services conditional upon the supply of convictions/cautions data. The background to the case is that it was alleged that Hiscox had required one of its policy holders, Mr Irfan Hussain, to supply convictions data about himself in the context of a claim made by Mr Hussain under his insurance policy over the loss of a £30,000 Swiss watch. Continue reading →