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
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.
As Panopticon devotees will know, the early months of 2017 brought a flurry of judgments about subject access requests – most importantly, in the Dawson-Damer and Ittihadieh/Deer cases. The principles from those judgments have now been incorporated into a revised ICO Code of Practice on subject access requests, published last week. The revised Code is important not only because it reflects up-to-date caselaw, but also because it tells us how the ICO expects to see subject access requests dealt with in practice.
Here are some of the key revisions. Continue reading
What factors should be taken into account when setting the amount of a monetary penalty for serious contraventions of data protection and privacy laws? Perhaps surprisingly, our case law has to date had precious little to say on this. The recent decision of the First-Tier Tribunal in LAD Media v IC (EA/2017/0022) is a notable exception. Continue reading
A mere three years ago, the FTT held that the Ministerial Diary of Andrew Lansley was relevantly held under FOIA and was not exempt under section 35(1)(b). Now the Court of Appeal has held, in Department of Health v Information Commissioner & Lewis [2017] EWCA Civ 374, that the FTT made no error. The fact that no-one can now remember who Andrew Lansley was (now Lord Lansley CBE thank you) or why anyone would care, is by-the-by. Continue reading
It came as news to us at Panopticon, but apparently there is an election happening. We hadn’t seen anything about it, but obviously our vision, like the election, was not 2020 after all. But not wanting to miss out on the fun (and by fun, we mean limitless repetition of meaningless slogans, the never-ending abuse of BBC reporters for ‘bias’ by everyone, and a slow dawning sense of the end of days not coming soon enough), we thought a quick glance at the main party manifestos would be in order. Continue reading
