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
Flushing out Wrongdoing: the DPA and the Publication of Allegations about Toilets
Local government is an exciting place. And because it is an exciting place, filled with thrusting go-getting types who live on the edge of danger, there is the risk of occasional accusations of wrongdoing. Councillor Hussain, a Labour member, of that parish is the subject of serious allegations – which have not yet been determined – to whit that he procured the sale of some toilets to a person connected to him at an undervalue and that he expunged some parking tickets issued to family members. Continue reading
Journalists beware: privacy can trump expression, even with open-source data
You are a journalist wanting to report on an issue of indisputable public interest. The issue involves people’s personal data, but it comes from publicly available sources. There could be no possible objection to your publishing that personal data as part of your story, right? Wrong – at least on the facts of the Satamedia v Finland case, on which the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR gave judgment this week. Continue reading
Don’t mention the bigger picture
The definition of ‘environmental information’ is notoriously wide. Notorious too is the difficulty of applying it and the lack of binding authority on how to go about the task.
To date the leading authority has been the Upper Tribunal’s decision in DECC v IC and Henney [2015] UKUT 0671 (AAC). Now we have BEIS v IC and Henney [2017] EWCA Civ 844. It’s the same appellant under a different name, and the same approach under a different label: in a nutshell, the Court of Appeal agreed with everything that the Upper Tribunal did, except for calling it ‘the bigger picture approach’. Continue reading
Data privacy and freedom of expression – new Strasbourg judgment
Hot of the press – The European Court of Human Rights has just handed down its judgment in the case of Satamedia v Finland. This is an important judgment on the relationship between the right to data privacy (even in respect of data which is publicly available) and the right to freedom of expression. More analysis to follow in due course.
Anya Proops QC
Conservative party call centre ‘may have broken election law’
Last night, Channel 4 News reported on an undercover investigation into allegations that the Conservative Party had engaged in unlawful canvassing in the context of the recent general election. The report included an interview with 11KBW’s Anya Proops QC. You can watch the report here, and see also this article in the Guardian.