Facebook “has considerable resources at its disposal and does not require to have spelled out to it on each occasion with inappropriate precision the particular laws of the UK which are in issue and which are being contravened” – Ouch! The High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland recently held that Facebook Ireland misused the … Continue reading
Category Archives: Internet intermediaries
On surveillance, safe harbour and Schrems…Are we that stuck?
Readers of this blog will almost certainly be aware that the European Union (EU) was the first regional organisation on the international stage to adopt a comprehensive, and relatively stringent, data protection regime. Yet, as the Internet is a global communications infrastructure, the EU has had to find ways to dialogue with non-EU (‘third’) countries … Continue reading
ISPs: data controllers as well as mere conduits? Does this make sense? What do we do with the e-privacy Directive if we care?
So here we are, the English Court of Appeal, as it has been explained by Alison in her post, has recently held in the Google v Vidal-Hall case, among other things, that there was a serious issue to be tried that Browser-Generated Information (BGI) is personal data under the Data Protection Act of 1998 (DPA), … Continue reading
Google: a data controller as well as an intermediary service provider? Does this make sense? Who cares?
So everyone knows it, Google is polymorphous. It has experienced many different forms: mere facilitator, publisher, hosting provider, caching provider… The latest legal label stuck on its mutant forehead is that of “data controller” and this has been done quite “noisily” by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in its Google Spain … Continue reading
blocking injunction / Data protection / deep packet inspection / Intellectual Property / Internet intermediaries / ISPs / Privacy
Cartier et al v Sky et al 2014: what if the ISPs’ blocking systems did not implement Shallow Packet Inspection technologies?
Over the last couple of years, music and film copyright owners have obtained several website-blocking orders under UK copyright rules (section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988). However, as there is no equivalent legislative provision for trade mark infringement, website-blocking orders have not been used in respect of trade mark infringement… that … Continue reading
Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 receives UK Royal Assent
Confirmed (albeit temporary) expansion in data retention powers to add new cyber-clue pieces to identity-profile ‘jigsaws’ The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 was enacted on 12 February 2015, following agreement by both Houses of Parliament on the text of the Bill (discussed on this blog here and here). The Act contains a number of tough … Continue reading
Google signs formal undertakings committing it to change its privacy policy for UK online users
‘The hits keep on rolling when you’re Google…’ As previously reported in this blog here and here, Google is rarely out of the headlines when it comes to the daily workloads of European data protection agencies (DPAs). The most recent story is the news from the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) that Google has signed … Continue reading
The (EU Parliament) Legal Service’s opinion on the impact of the invalidity of the data retention Directive…. Is the wind starting to blow?
On 8 January, the legal service of the European Parliament released an opinion, the purpose of which was to answer 9 questions posed by its LIBE Committee (Civil Liberties, Justice and Home affairs), as regards the effect of the judgment of CJEU in the landmark Digital Ireland (DRI) case of 8 April 2014 on the … Continue reading
Access to data / content data / Data protection / interception / Internet intermediaries / Law enforcement / metadata / Privacy
What if Commissioners could be heard by the right people? Why DRIPA is getting muddier and muddier…
Just before Christmas, the UK Interception of Communications Commissioner’s Office (IOCCO) published online its submission for the Investigatory Powers Review. It is a 51 p. document full of interesting things. The purpose of this post is to highlight the main points made by the IOCCO with a view to clarifying the debate as regards the … Continue reading
A structured overview of the Article 29 Working Party’s guidelines on the implementation of the right to … alter the structured overview of data-subject information generated by search engines (the so-called ‘right to be forgotten’)
The Article 29 Data Protection Working Party adopted on 26 November 2014 its guidelines on the implementation of the controversial Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) judgment on Google Spain v. AEPD and Costeja (C-131/12). In that case, the CJEU ruled on three questions concerning the interpretation of the Data Protection Directive … Continue reading