Data Protection

21.11.23

Is it safe to use AI for legal research?  Not yet

The development and use of AI (artificial intelligence) has increased dramatically in the past year. Widely available AI apps can be used to ask complex questions and immediately receive ostensibly sophisticated answers. The use of AI has extended to the legal sector where chatbots can be used to search for cases relating to a particular…

13.11.23

Court rules on meaning in Noel Clarke’s defamation claim against The Guardian

As many readers will know, Noel Clarke, the actor perhaps best known for his roles in three films constituting The Hood Trilogy and the television series Bulletproof, has sued The Guardian newspaper for libel and breach of his data protection rights in respect of eight articles in which he was accused of various forms of…

4.05.23

The ICO needs to do more than pay lip service to data processing complaints against search engines and the press

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is the UK’s ‘supervisory authority’, as required by the Data Protection Directive (Directive 95/46/EC) (superseded by the EU General Data Protection Regulation and later the UK General Data Protection Regulation) on all matters concerning personal data. Amongst its roles, the ICO is obliged to consider complaints from members of the…

24.04.23

Responding to a Subject Access Request

Responding to a Subject Access Request (also known as a Data Subject Access request, SAR or DSAR) can be a burdensome task, particularly where an organisation is processing large volumes of personal data.  The matter can be especially thorny where the organisation believes that the disclosure sought is effectively a means by which to obtain…

14.04.23

Careers at Brett Wilson LLP

We are presently recruiting a commercial/civil litigation solicitor and a legal cashier/finance assistant.  For further information please see our careers webpage.

4.04.23

Georgia Harrison to sue Stephen Bear over revenge porn/image-based abuse that has already landed him in jail

  Who are Stephen Bear and Georgia Harrison? If you are not a fan of reality television, then it’s unlikely you would have heard of either of Stephen Bear or Georgia Harrison until recently. Stephen Bear, 33, appeared on Shipwrecked in 2011 and Ex on the Beach in 2015.  These accomplishments allowed Bear to qualify…

2.03.23

Matt Hancock’s WhatsApp messages: Can Isabel Oakeshott’s breach of confidence be justified?

As has been widely reported, journalist Isabel Oakeshott has passed a number of former health secretary Matt Hancock’s WhatsApp messages to The Daily Telegraph, which has published them as part of its Lockdown files investigation.  The messages, apparently totaling over 100,000, were originally provided to Ms Oakeshott by Mr Hancock for the purposes of helping…

27.02.23

Brett Wilson partners recommended as top reputation and privacy lawyers in Spear’s 500

Media law partners Iain Wilson and Max Campbell have been recommended as top reputation and privacy lawyers in the prestigious Spear’s 500 legal directory.  The directory purports to be the definitive guide to the top private client advisers and service providers for HNW individuals.

Has the SRA lost perspective on SLAPPs?

Brett Wilson Partner Iain Wilson writes about the recent SRA Thematic Review in the The Law Society Gazette. The article can be found be found here.

12.12.22

Service by email to multiple addresses held to be invalid

In R (on the application of Tax Returned Ltd and others) v Commissioners for His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs [2022] EWHC 2515 (Admin), the Administrative Court provided clarification of when service by email is capable of being effective.  The case concerned HMRC’s decision to implement a new mandatory tax form for claiming tax relief on…