Privacy – cearta.ie

After a long and distinguished career as a popular public servant, first as a councillor, then then as a TD, and finally as a Minister, Pat Carey (pictured left) is now a public affairs consultant. On 11 and 12 November 2015, the Irish Independent reported that a Garda investigation was under way into allegations of child sexual abuse against an un-named former Minister. He claimed that he was identifiable as the person concerned, and he felt he had no choice but to issue a statement denying the allegations. He was never arrested; and, after the Garda investigation had concluded, the Director of Public Prosecutions in 2019 informed him that no charges would be brought against him. Meanwhile, he commenced proceedings against various defendants, including the Garda Commissioner and the Irish Independent, for damages for invasion of privacy. When the case settled in Mr Carey’s favour earlier this month, there was much sympathetic coverage:

Former minister Pat Carey receives apology from Garda Commissioner and damages over newspaper articles (Irish Times, 16 June 2023)
Former minister Pat Carey to receive ‘substantial damages’ over Garda leak (Irish Independent, 16 June 2023)
Gardaí apologise to Pat Carey over leaks from 2015 investigation into unfounded allegations (TheJournal.ie,

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It’s good to TalkTalk – Part 2: negligence claims for data breaches

18 July, 202225 July, 2022

| No Comments

| Data Protection, Privacy, Privacy, Tort

1. Introduction

Two recent cases demonstrate two very different privacy issues arising out data breaches suffered by the telecommunications company TalkTalk in 2014 and 2015. Smith v TalkTalk Telecom Group plc [2022] EWHC 1311 (QB) (27 May 2022) concerned claims for damages for both breaches; whilst Sterritt v Telegraph Media Group Ltd [2022] NIQB 43 (09 June 2022) concerned the privacy of one of the hackers involved in the second breach. In my previous post, I looked at the limits of claims for misuse of private information for both breaches in Smith. In this post, I want to look at Smith (again) and at Sterritt, to consider the limits of a claim in negligence in such cases.

2. Negligence claims in Smith

The main problem in Smith is that TalkTalk did not take steps to secure the data involved in the 2014 breach and the 2015 hack. This sounds like a failure to take reasonable care. But a negligence claim in such circumstances was not pleaded, as it was probably precluded by authority.

In Swinney v Chief Constable of Northumbria Police Force [1997] QB 464, [1996] EWCA Civ 1322 (22 March 1996), the plaintiff saw a car which had hit and killed a police officer, and provided that information to the police.…

It’s good to TalkTalk – Part 1: misuse of private information claims for data breaches

15 July, 202218 July, 2022

| 6 Comments

| Data Protection, Privacy, Privacy

1. Introduction

Two recent cases demonstrate two very different privacy issues arising out data breaches suffered by the telecommunications company TalkTalk in 2014 and 2015. Smith v TalkTalk Telecom Group plc [2022] EWHC 1311 (QB) (27 May 2022) concerned claims for damages for both breaches; whilst Sterritt v Telegraph Media Group Ltd [2022] NIQB 43 (09 June 2022) concerned the privacy of one of the hackers involved in the second breach. In this post, I want to look at the limits of claims for misuse of private information for both breaches in Smith. In the next post, I will look at Smith (again) and at Sterritt, to consider the limits of a claim in negligence in such cases.

2. Smith and the 2014 TalkTalk breach: no misuse of private information

In Smith v TalkTalk Telecom Group plc [2022] EWHC 1311 (QB) (27 May 2022) (noted on Panopticon), in September 2014, TalkTalk customers began to receive scam calls purporting to be from TalkTalk, which were ultimately traced to data obtained by users of Wipro, a third party providing network services to TalkTalk. However, Wipro put no adequate controls in place to prevent unauthorised access by its users to the data supplied by TalkTalk.…

Seán Quinn, the Streisand Effect, and improving the operation of the right to be forgotten – updated

9 November, 202124 October, 2022

| 5 Comments

| GDPR, Right to be Forgotten

Google search RtbF notice

I have just conducted a search on a popular search engine for “Seán Quinn”, and the above message – that Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe – appears at the bottom of each page of results. Over the past weekend, there was widespread media coverage of attempts by Seán Quinn to rely on the EU’s right to be forgotten to remove newspaper articles from search listings that highlighted significant aspects of his bankruptcy and of his family’s lavish pre-bankruptcy lifestyle. This attempt at reputation management backfired spectacularly on him, and stands as an example of the Streisand effect, which is:

… a phenomenon that occurs when an attempt to hide, remove, or censor information has the unintended consequence of increasing awareness of that information, often via the Internet. It is named after American singer Barbra Streisand, whose attempt to suppress the California Coastal Records Project photograph of her residence in Malibu, California, taken to document California coastal erosion, inadvertently drew greater attention to it in 2003.

On Saturday, in the Irish Independent, Shane Phelan published the following story:

Revealed: Quinn family succeeds in campaign to erase press coverage of lavish lifestyle

Google delists dozens of articles on court battles and even €100,000 wedding cake

Members of ex-billionaire Seán Quinn’s family have mounted a successful campaign to have press coverage about their past ‘forgotten’ by Google.

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