Category: Data Protection

In his speech in Greenwich on Monday, Boris Johnson, signalled that he is prepared, if needed, for the UK to depart from GDPR norms of data protection.  About an hour earlier, the European Union published a document which stated that any such departure would likely put the kibosh on any adequacy determination for the UK and stall co-operation (e.g. data sharing) in the field of law enforcement. In this Blog I provide quotes from the documents and speech so readers

Given that the Conservatives are forming a majority Government for the next five years, it is clear that the UK will leave the European Union and implement an expected New Withdrawal Agreement by January 31st in 2020.  This means Exit Day is January 31st 2020, and the “Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (EU Exit) Regulations” SI 419/ 2019 will come into effect.  Note added in Feb 2020: when I wrote the blog, there was no finalised New Withdrawal Agreement

This is my review of the relevant part of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat Manifestos as they relate to data protection and human rights.  I present a series of quotes from each Manifesto so that readers can quickly see what has been promised by the three main Parties before drawing a few summary conclusions.  The Manifestos are all available online. Conservative Manifesto Strengthening the position of the Executive branch of Government: “After Brexit we also need to look at

I have to admit I was depressed at the “doctoring” of the interview between the presenters of Good Morning Britain and Sir Keir Starmer MP by the Conservative Party in the first week of November. In a general election, voters need information not disinformation. For those not familiar with what I am talking about, an edited recording of an interview with the Labour politician was used in a political advert.  However, a long pause was edited into the recording just

Last week’s Queen’s Speech has been regarded as the Conservative Government’s shop-window of measures for its forthcoming General Election campaign; last Saturday’s vote on the New Withdrawal Agreement relates to what happens to Brexit in the meantime. This blog assumes the risk of hard Brexit is diminished until December 2020 and that the UK leaves the EU;  it covers the relevance of these two events to data protection and concludes: Item 1: GDPR standards maintained. If there is eventual Parliamentary

The immigration exemption in Schedule 2 (paragraph 4) of the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA2018) has always been controversial; it is subject to a judicial review by the High Court, in London, on July 23 & 24. The controversy arises because an exemption that was not needed by the immigration authorities under the DPA1984, nor under the DPA1998, has nothing to do with crime, tax, any compulsory court order, any mandatory disclosure requirement or national security issue. However, suddenly this exemption became an urgent necessity

This blog shows that the current furore concerning access to a rape victim’s phone, relying on consent of a rape victim, sits uneasily with a data protection analysis.  I also point out that there appears to be three forms of “consent” floating around in the GDPR/Data Protection Act 2018 (“DPA2018”) framework. First of all, the relevant part of the DPA2018 to consider is the law enforcement elements, as access to the victim’s phone is by the police or prosecutors in relation

{Blog changed on 2nd April due to the threat of legal action by the Homeland Security Department of USA} Amberhawk is pleased to announce that it has won a Cyber Security Challenge UK competition for the best idea in 2019 (so far) to prevent cyber-crime in the young.  Our idea involves enhanced parental responsibility, increased awareness of computer crime and teaches children under the age of ten about the dangers from hacking.  No special technology or software is needed. To