Category: Other Information Law

From a data protection perspective, it has been hard to keep up with recent events: every day has been more revealing than the previous day. A company’s powerful management has been humbled for invasions of privacy; worse could follow, if the allegation that the company "hacked" the families of 9/11 victims, is proven. No more will any manager be able to say “Privacy and data protection law: that is risk-free piffle!”. The Home Affairs Select Committee Report published yesterday contains

In the middle of the Major years (back in the 1990’s), David Mellor, then a Cabinet Minister (whose fascination for female toes was discussed by the tabloids, in the “public interest” of course) famously said that the press were drinking at “the last chance saloon”. Fifteen years of hard drinking later, the recent events into phone hacking shown that some journalists and editors were too drunk to notice. In this fast moving field, there are four data protection issues to

Following last week’s U-turn on prison sentencing, I think there is a possibility that the Government could change its approach to the retention of personal data on the DNA database. Ministers are clearly worried that they are being labelled as “soft on law and order”, especially by the tabloid press. At last week’s Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs), David Cameron said that he would look into whether the police should retain the DNA of those arrested but not charged because of “evidence”

The proposed PNR Directive, if implemented by Member States in its current form, promises a low level of data protection and the absence of obvious privacy safeguards. The Directive permits a system of data protection regulation for PNR data that is fragmented and role of the data protection authority that can be minimised by Member States. There are also particularly weak provisions relating to transparency. The current text allows Member States the flexibility to transfer PNR data to any third

I think the Daily Mail, the newspaper that has Paul Dacre at its helm, has blown it. According to a Court judgment issued last Friday, he has allowed his newspaper to publish deliberate untruths in order to further his campaign against privacy injunctions. The injunction in question involved “Fred the Shred”, the erstwhile banker who has cost the taxpayer millions of pounds when the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) collapsed. So how did the Daily Mail attempt to undermine a

I wrote last Friday’s blog before the weekend’s Twittering events and it is quite clear that the injunction protecting the footballer’s privacy is unsustainable. Clearly barring all of the press from mentioning a name simply is a non-starter (especially as the footballer’s name was chanted by fans at yesterday’s Premier League games). However, several facts are being missed in the current reporting furore. First is that the Court granted the footballer an injunction because the newspaper concerned was the beneficiary of an

As far as I can see, the Review of the use of super injunctions by a Committee headed by the two senior judges in the UK is: “no change except at the procedural fringe”. The Review more or less throws down the gauntlet to Parliament and states that it has either to change the law, otherwise the Courts will continue onwards as before. The suggested procedural changes act at the superficial level, shorter periods for super injunctions, more review of their necessity,

Super injunctions just for the rich and powerful? The Courts making it up a privacy law as they go along? Is that the impression you get from the media coverage of the current super injunction case? However, did you know that, in this case, the Court concluded that the question was more about blackmail than free speech? Did you know that the newspaper did not provide any evidence as to why the public interest was served by disclosure? [Note added on

I thought I would put into the public domain my answers to some very important questions surrounding the journalist phone hacking scandal. Of course I am reading the runes to obtain my answers, but after all its Friday – the day when one can speculate irresponsibly. However, please look carefully at what is said about “acceptable use” policies. Q1: Why has the Metropolitan Police upped its inquiry and have 50 officers on the case? I think the Met Police had

Last week the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) posted a damning report into how the proposed Passenger Name Record (PNR) Directive was disproportionate and failed to protect the privacy of passengers arriving in Europe. At more or less the same time the UK Government, with the support of a Committee of the House of Lords, supported the extension of this Directive to include the capture of details of passengers using internal flights within Europe. This proposal is being pushed through