Remember how for years a data protection claim would be bunged on the end of a libel and/or privacy complaint, receiving little to no judicial or litigation attention, because it was seen as a boring tecchie subject few understood? Those days have been over for some time (as us DPA drum-bangers have been pointing out), and the Queen’s Bench Division now agrees. A new Media and Communications List has been created within the QBD, to be headed up by Warby J. Continue reading
11KBW Information Law Conference 2017
Our Information Law Conference will be taking place on Monday 27 March 2017. We are delighted to announce that Lord Toulson will be giving the key note address at this year’s event.
The conference will be held at the The Royal College of Surgeons of England, 35-43 Lincoln Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PE
Click here for the conference agenda.
For more details on how to book your place at the conference click here.
Dawson-Damer: The Irresistible Rise of the DPA
Hot off the presses comes the first of the Court of Appeal’s two forays into data protection law this term: Dawson-Damer v Tayor Wessing LLP [2017] EWCA Civ 74. It is an important decision and one well worth reading, particularly while waiting for round 2 (which has some overlaps) in Ittihadieh v 5-11 Cheyne Gardens / Deer v University of Oxford (likely to be handed down in the next month or so). Continue reading
Don’t be a data protection fundamentalist
So, data protection fans, what do you think of this?
“… data protection laws reach into and are employed in rather surprising circumstances. It generates, not just for the uninformed bystander, a certain intellectual unease as to the reasonable use and function of data protection rules.” Continue reading
Defamation and data protection: hand-in-glove
Suppose you publish a statement about me to which I object. Can I sue you for both defamation and data protection breaches based on the same set of facts? Or should that sort of ‘doubling up’ be prohibited as a disproportionate attempt to achieve the same objective in different ways? Continue reading
SARs and Legal Professional Privilege
It’s fair to say that the Supreme Court’s Brexit judgment has taken some attention from other legal developments of the day, but Holyoake v (1) Candy (2) CPC Group Limited [2017] EWHC 52 is another significant judgment on the scope of the subject access right under s.7 DPA, and not just because it involves all 4 of Panopticon’s editors.
In the context of underlying multi-million pound proceedings in the Chancery Division between the parties, who are high-end property developers, Mr Holyoake made SARs against Mr Candy and CPC, which he asserted had been inadequately answered. Mr Holyoake claimed that the defendants had carried out inadequate searches, and that Mr Candy had invalidly relied on the LPP exemption. Continue reading