What happens when your FOIA request to a public authority is met with the response that it would breach the cost limits set under section 12 to respond to the request because the authority’s record keeping systems are in a particular (i.e. poor) state? In a word: tough. Continue reading
Government publishes data protection bill proposals
For those of you champing at the bit to learn of the Government’s plans for domesticating the GDPR, I have some good news. The Government has today, in the personage of Matt Hancock MP, Digital Minister, published its ‘statement of intent’ in respect of the new data protection bill – see here. Some key highlights of the proposals include the following: Continue reading
Brussels Update: Exams and Data Transfers
It is worth noting a couple of data protection developments from our European neighbours from the last week or so. First, Advocate General Kokott has handed down an Opinion in Case C-434/16 Nowak v Data Protection Commissioner (ECLI:EU:C:2017:582) about examination scripts. Second, the CJEU has delivered itself of Opinion 1/15 (ECLI:EU:C:2017:592) on the compatibility with Charter rights of the envisaged agreement between the EU and Canada on Passenger Name Record data. Continue reading
A global right to be forgotten?
In its (in)famous Google Spain judgment in 2014, the CJEU breathed life into the right to be forgotten. That right – explicitly preserved in the GDPR – is one of the more divisive limbs of EU data protection law: it is good for privacy, but it can be very bad for freedom of expression. That concern is drawn out sharply in current litigation between Google and the French data protection authority, Commission Nationale Informatique et Libertes (CNIL). The crux of the dispute is this: does your EU-given right to be forgotten apply across the whole world? Continue reading
Jeremy Corbyn and the DPA
Remember Jeremy Corbyn in his pre-cult figure days? (Okay, I know he has always been a cult figure to some – but I mean before the election and Glastonbury and so on). Remember the CCTV footage of him slouching about in a vestibule on a busy Virgin train? If so, you will probably remember that Virgin responded to the suggestion of overcrowding by publishing CCTV footage from the train journey to show that there were seats available. Did it breach the DPA in doing so? Continue reading
Disclosure of judge’s handwritten notes – the ICO speaks
Some of you may have read in last week’s Guardian of an ICO ruling which resulted in the Ministry of Justice handing over a judge’s handwritten notes under data protection legislation (if not, see the article here). If you did read the article, it may be that you are now scratching your head trying to work out why and how the notes came to be disclosed. Well you need scratch no longer – here is the ICO decision letter (for which thanks to Mrs Percival). The following appears from the decision letter: Continue reading