As Panopticon’s readership will be well aware, last week’s judgment in Prismall v Google UK Ltd and Deep Mind Technologies Ltd [2023] EWHC 1169 (KB) saw Mrs Justice Williams strike out the only live attempt in the UK at an opt-out class action for data misuse. In this post, I’ll summarise the Court’s key reasons. Continue reading
GDPR and privacy damages: causation and quantum
Personal data of a private and sensitive nature can, of course, end up being used in ways that are both distressing and tangled – in the sense that it is not altogether clear who (if anyone) to hold responsible, in law and in fact. The recent judgment of Chamberlain J in Ali v Chief Constable of Bedfordshire [2023] EWHC 938 (KB) is a must-read case study for anyone needing guidance in navigating thickets of causation and quantum (spoiler: award of £3k for UK GDPR breaches; the same award would have arisen for misuse of private information and under Article 8 ECHR in these circumstances). Continue reading
Subject access disputes: exemptions, closed procedures and more
As noted by Panopticon earlier today, the CJEU has been busy pronouncing on subject access request principles. The drift has, in general, been pro-data subject. In the UK, however, subject access case law has not necessarily been one-way pro-disclosure traffic, as is evident from the robust and careful judgment handed down this week by Mrs Justice Farbey in X v Transcription Agency and Master James. Continue reading
Subject access requests: what do you need to provide?
Dear Sir/Madam, I hereby make a subject access request, please give me copies of documents and specify everyone you gave my data to, yours sincerely.
Response: okay, you can have some data, but no documents and we only need to tell you about ‘categories’ of recipients, not specific recipients.
Reply: not good enough, Article 15 GDPR entitles me to more detail.
Who is right? The CJEU has had a busy few months shedding some light on these kinds of issues, thanks mainly to a slew of Austrian referrals, with its latest contribution coming last week. Continue reading
GDPR compensation claims: no threshold of seriousness
Panopticon has covered a number of judgments handed down in the UK over the last year or two that demonstrate judicial scepticism about compensation claims for alleged data protection infringements. In a number of cases (though not all), judges have been particularly sceptical whether, on the facts before them, the claim – even if made out – would pass the threshold of seriousness for entitlement to compensation. Some, however, argue that compensation claims under the GDPR/UK GDPR are not subject to any such threshold. So what’s the answer? Continue reading
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Korea?
By making it the subject of the UK’s first post-Brexit UK GDPR data adequacy decision of course! With effect from 19 December 2022, the UK has designated the Republic of Korea as providing an adequate level of personal data: see the Data Protection (Adequacy) (Republic of Korea) Regulation 2022. Regulation 2(2) specifies that a “transfer described by this subsection is a transfer of personal data to a person in the Republic of Korea who is subject to the Personal Information Protection Act as that Act forms part of the law of the Republic of Korea and has effect from time to time“. Continue reading