Category: Data Protection

Confusion over Google’s Enforcement Notice in the UK

Note added 11 December: Google have appealed the Enforcement Notice so let legal battle commence. In the last blog, I reported that Google had been ordered to remove nine search results and that the case was important as it related to Google’s practice of notifying websites that certain personal data have been delisted when searching by name.  I wrote the blog after I was told by the Information Commission’s (ICO’s) press office that Google had not appealed the ICO’s Enforcement

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Google fails to defend its policy of informing websites that personal data have been delisted by it.

Please see the blog of 25/10/2015 which updates this blog Google was given 35 days (which elapsed around October 1st) to respond to the Commissioner's Enforcement Notice; I have found out from a very reliable source that Google has not appealed (i.e. passed over the opportunity to defend the policy at the Tribunal).  As Google risks criminal prosecution if they have not complied with the ICO’s demand, I am assuming Google has complied. The nine search results related to a

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Understanding Safe Harbor, Schrems v Facebook in less than 300 words

Safe Harbor is now defunct because the European Court of Justice (ECJ) found the following: (a)    There is no general privacy law or other measures enacted in the USA that shows the USA offers "an adequate level of protection" for personal data relating to European data subjects; (b)    Public law enforcement authorities which obtain personal data from organisations in Safe Harbor are not obliged to follow the Safe Harbor rules after disclosure; (c)    Some USA law enforcement agencies can gain

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ECJ bombshell! No fair processing notice? No processing.

I think the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has just issued a judgement which has the potential to be more important than Max Schrems v Facebook (due on October 6 next week). The ECJ has just concluded that Articles 10, 11 (the fair processing requirements of Directive 95/45/EC) and Article 13 (includes the exemptions from the need to provide a fair processing notice) must be interpreted as precluding national measures which allow a public administrative body in a Member State to disclose

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Government fragments data protection policy & leaves Leveson’s data protection recommendations to rot

The transfer of responsibility for data protection policy to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is a really bad idea.  It fragments responsibility for data protection policy across three Departments of State and risks reducing the protection afforded to data subjects.  Important data protection recommendations from Leveson will be shelved.  This blog explains why. One reason for the shift of responsibility to the DCMS (unexplained at the moment) could be because it

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Voting for Jeremy? Labour Party’s vetting ensures approved voters score low Marx

A Labour spokesman has just told the BBC that the Party was confident "the processes of verification and handling applications (to vote in the leadership election) are compliant with the Data Protection Act". I will leave readers to judge this issue as I have just received an email from a colleague whose application to vote in the forthcoming Labour Party Leadership election has been rejected. The letter he received reads as follows: Dear Applicant, Thank you for your recent application

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Council’s exceptions from the Data Protection Regulation degrade the privacy protection below Directive 95/46/EC

This blog explains, in detail, how the Council of Minister’s text of the Regulation, in particular the exceptions specified in Article 21 (A.21) and the flexibility granted to Member States to enact variations to the obligations under the Regulation,  are very likely to result in a level of data protection below the standard established by Directive 95/46/EC. Given that the relevant parts of the Regulation (e.g. the exceptions in A.21) are being considered in current Trilog discussions, the blog provides a link

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EDPS warns that data processing under the Regulation “must be both lawful and justified”

I wasn’t going to publish this blog until I saw the above headline from the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) recommendations for the Data Protection Regulation (see references). This headline reads: “All data processing must be both lawful and justified”. This issue has been a concern of mine for sometime but I had convinced myself that my concerns were misplaced.  However as the EDPS has raised them, I think it is worth resurrecting the point for consumption by the data

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ICO warning: “enforced subject access” used by insurance industry is an abuse of data subject rights

The Information Commissioner (ICO) has told the Association of British Insurers (ABI) that their members who ask data subjects to exercise their rights of access to health records in order to obtain insurance products are making several breaches of the Data Protection Act. Clearly, the ICO is expecting the ABI's variant of enforced subject access to cease; the only remaining question is whether the Insurance Industry disagrees and wants to “have its day in court”. In a letter to the ABI (see references),

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Council of Ministers’ Regulation text negates ECJ rulings in Lindqvist and Ryneš

Note added: 21/12/2015 after GDPR Trilog text published: Article 2b of the consolidated text states that the domestic purpose is processing “by a natural person in the course of a purely personal or household activity”; Recital 15 of that text allows for limited social media use. I therefore expect that Lindqvist and Ryneš rulings to remain relevant to the GDPR Original posting The Lindqvist decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in 2003 has always caused problems.  In Data

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