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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 →

Do clinicians treating a patient with Huntington’s Disease have a duty to disclose the diagnosis to the patient’s daughters? Arguably so, says the Court of Appeal in ABC v St George’s Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (2017) EWCA Civ 336.

Huntington’s Disease is inherited. The child of a parent with the disease has a 50 per cent chance of developing the condition.

In the ABC case the Claimant’s father was diagnosed with the condition.  He told his brother.  He did not inform the Claimant or either of her sisters. Continue reading →

Just in case any readers are interested, the EU has announced that it is setting up a ‘multi-stakeholder expert group’ to assist the EU Commission in understanding the potential challenges posed by the application of the GDPR (see here). It is anticipated that the group will consist of academic, legal practitioners, as well as business and civil society representatives. If you or your clients are interested in applying for membership of the group, here’s the relevant link.

Anya Proops QC