Data Protection
20.08.19
New rules for media and communications claims
From 1 October 2019 new rules – in the form of a revised Part 53 of the Civil Procedure Rules, revised/new practice directions (PD 7A, 53A and 53B) and an all encompassing pre-action protocol – will apply to claims in England and Wales arising from media and communications disputes. The formal designation of a specialist…
Read more7.08.19
Elisabeth Mason joins Brett Wilson LLP’s media law team
On 5 August 2019 Elisabeth Mason joined Brett Wilson LLP’s media law department. Elisabeth is a highly-regarded solicitor specialising in defamation, privacy, harassment and data protection law. Elisabeth joins the firm from Pennington Manches Cooper LLP and has been involved in recent high-profile cases including Zahir Monir v Steve Wood [2018] EWHC 3525 (QB). Elisabeth’s…
Read more2.08.19
Court refuses routine NPO disclosure application due to lack of “genuine intention”
In Mircom International and Golden Eye International v Virgin Media and Persons Unknown [2019] EWHC 1827 (Ch) the High Court declined to order Virgin Media to hand over the IP addresses of persons who had allegedly downloaded and shared pornographic films in breach of copyright. The internet and broadband provider resisted the application of Mircom and…
Read more14.06.19
Lexis Nexis interview: Using the GDPR in a privacy claim
Information Law analysis: Iain Wilson, managing partner at Brett Wilson LLP, comments on the utility of the GDPR in privacy cases in light of the recent case brought by the Duke of Sussex, which was settled out of court. How can someone use the GDPR to battle an invasion of privacy? Where private information is…
Read more16.05.19
Paparazzi agencies pay damages to Duke of Sussex for privacy invasion
Splash News and Picture Agency Limited and Splash News & Picture Agency LLC (‘Splash’) have apologised and agreed to pay substantial damages to the Duke of Sussex after using a helicopter to take photographs of his home in the Cotswolds. In January of this year Splash chartered a helicopter which flow over the Duke’s home…
Read more15.05.19
Supreme Court grants permission to appeal in mass data breach case
The Supreme Court has granted the defendant supermarket chain permission to appeal the Court of Appeal’s decision in WM Morrison Supermarkets Plc v Various Claimants [2018] EWCA Civ 2339. The appeal will consider the principle of vicarious liability in respect of statutory data protection claims and common law misuse of private information claims. The claim…
Read more16.04.19
Pregnancy club fined £400,000 for sharing personal data of 14 million individuals
Bounty UK, an online club for pregnancy and parenthood advice has been fined £400,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office (‘ICO’) following the discovery that the personal data of its users had been shared with 39 other companies without informed consent. A copy of the Monetary Penalty Notice can be found here. Bounty UK collected personal…
Read more11.01.19
Victory for Google at European level on the scope of delisting
On 10 January 2019, Advocate General Maciej Szpunar provided his written opinion to the Court of Justice of the European Union (‘CJEU’) on the territorial scope of requests to delist search engine results under the ‘right to be forgotten’ principle, which (in the context of search engines at least) was established in May 2014 in…
Read more7.12.18
YouTuber who persistently breached injunction jailed for four months
In Al-Ko Kober Ltd and another v Sambhi Mr Justice Nicol sentenced Balvinder Sambhi to four months’ imprisonment for contempt of court for repeated breaches of an injunction. Mr Sambhi had set up his own YouTube channel and used it, amongst other things, to publish a series of videos which made derogatory comments about one of…
Read more16.11.18
Employer held liable for employee’s data breach, even though his objective was to damage them
On 22 October 2018, the Court of Appeal dismissed the supermarket chain’s appeal in the case of Various Claimants v WM Morrison Supermarkets PLC [2018] EWCA Civ 2339, where Morrisons had been held vicariously liable at first instance for a mass data breach caused by the criminal act of a rogue employee (see our blog…
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Articles are intended as an introduction to the topic and do not constitute legal advice.