Privacy – Page 5 – cearta.ie

There will be a discussion of

Privacy in the Digital Age – Is it Time for a New Paradigm?

in the Trinity Long Room Hub, next Wednesday, 13 July 2016, from 3:00pm to 5:00pm.

The speakers will be Dr Jyn Schultze-Melling (Director for Privacy Policy, Europe, Facebook) and Dr TJ McIntyre (Lecturer in Law, UCD; Chairman, Digital Rights Ireland). They will speak for no more than 30mins each; and there will be plenty of time for discussion. The event will be chaired by Joan Mulvihill (CEO, Irish Internet Association). …

Workplace surveillance, conditions of employment, and privacy

12 May, 20168 June, 2016

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| Contract, Privacy

The Hawthorne effect is alive and well, and living in the interstices between private law and privacy law. In particular, I recently saw the following clause in a contract (the names have been changed to protect the innocent, the guilty, bystanders, and anyone else involved ):

WORKPLACE SURVEILLANCE
The employer’s workplaces are subject to overt workplace surveillance. You agree that you consent to this surveillance which is primarily to ensure the safety and security of the employer’s workplaces and the appropriate use of the employer’s resources. The overt surveillance is in the form of computer, internet usage and camera surveillance and is of an ongoing and continuous nature, in accordance with the employer’s relevant policies as amended from time to time.

This surveillance is carried out by all means available to the employer, which may include accessing your email account; accessing your files; accessing your computer or other electronic devices and recording internet usage by you including remote access internet usage and accessing those records.

The Citizens Information website has a lot of information on the legitimate scope of surveillance in the workplace, and the Data Protection Commissioner has issued Guidance Notes on the Monitoring of Staff, which emphasises that

monitoring, including employees’ email or internet usage, surveillance by camera, video cameras or location data must comply with the transparency requirements of data protection law.

…

Freeze-frame-and-shame? Or should even the Devil have the benefit of data protection laws?

28 April, 20161 July, 2016

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| Privacy

In this morning’s Irish Times, I read that Dublin City Council are to press ahead with their policy of posting freeze-frame CCTV images of people dumping their rubbish in litter black-spots, in the hope of shaming them or others into desisting from doing so in the future (a policy I have dubbed in the title of this post “freeze-frame-and-shame”):

The council’s head of waste management, Declan Wallace, said illegal dumpers were “just bad citizens” and he saw no difficulty in exposing them.

Recognisable images captured by CCTV systems are “personal data”, subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Acts. Consequently, the Data Protection Commissioner contacted the Council over its first use of such CCTV images a fortnight ago; but the Council replied that it is confident that it is acting within the data protection legislation; and it has obviously decided to continue with its policy to “freeze-frame-and-shame” “bad citizens”.

Whenever I hear the argument put forward (either overtly or by implication) that bad guys really don’t deserve the benefit of the laws (whether the bad guys are “enemy combatants” in Guantanamo Bay or “bad citizens” fly-tipping in Dublin), I am reminded of a great scene in Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons, a play and movie about the rise and fall of Sir Thomas More in the court of Henry VIII.…

Full Breach Damages in data protection cases – the impact of Vidal-Hall on Collins v FBD

13 June, 20154 December, 2020

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| Privacy

The Court of Appeal decision in Google Inc v Vidal-Hall [2015] EWCA Civ 311 (27 March 2015) (Dyson MR and Sharp LJ in a joint judgment; McFarlane LJ concurring), affirming the judgment of Tugendhat J (at [2014] EWHC 13 (QB) (16 January 2014)), is a very important decision on damages for invasion of privacy, and it raises significant questions about the correctness of of Feeney J’s reasoning in the earlier Irish case of Collins v FBD Insurance plc [2013] IEHC 137 (14 March 2013).

The three claimants alleged that the defendant had tracked and collated private information about the their internet usage via their Apple Safari browser without their knowledge and consent, contrary to the defendant’s publicly stated position that such activity could not be conducted for Safari users unless they had expressly allowed it to happen (much of the technical and regulatory background is set out here by Alexander Hanff; and Judith Vidal-Hall explains here and here how she came to take on the giant that is Google). The Court held that the claimants could maintain claims against the defendant, in tort for misuse of private information, and for compensation pursuant section 13 of the Data Protection Act, 1998.…

McKillen’s claims against the Barclay Brothers near their end

28 April, 201512 July, 2016

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| Open Justice, Privacy

The long-running saga in McKillen v Misland (Cyprus) Investments Ltd seems to be nearing its end. I have already discussed the stage of the case which concerned open justice, and the first instance judgment of Richards J on the substantive issue (see [2012] EWHC 2343 (Ch)). The aim of this post is to note both the final outcome of the substantive action and the ultimate resolution of the dispute in London (though an Irish offshoot may still be ongoing).

The plaintiff, the formerly reclusive but now well known Irish property developer, Mr Paddy McKillen, owned 36.2% of the shares in Coroin, which owned and managed three leading hotels in London – Claridge’s, the Connaught (pictured) and the Berkeley. Derek Quinlan owned 35.4% of the shares. In January 2011, a company associated with Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay bought Misland (Cyprus) Investments Limited, (Misland), which then owned 24.7% and ultimately owned 28.36% of the shares. During the remainder of 2011, the Barclays and associated companies sought to take control of Coroin. McKillen alleged that the steps they took amounted to a breach of pre-emption in provisions in a shareholders’ agreement which required shares to be offered to other shareholders before being sold elsewhere, and that the pre-emption provisions were also triggered by charges over Mr Quinlan’s shares to secure Mr Quinlan’s bank borrowings becoming enforceable.…

Regulating Emerging Technologies: A Challenge for Law, a Challenge for Ethics, a Challenge for Everyone

4 March, 2015

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| Conferences, Lectures, Papers and Workshops, Privacy, Regulation

Professor Roger Brownsword will deliver a public lecture on

Regulating Emerging Technologies: A Challenge for Law, a Challenge for Ethics, a Challenge for Everyone

in the Trinity Long Room Hub, on Wednesday 11 March 2015 at 6:30pm.

In this public lecture, organised by the Confederal School of Religions, Peace Studies and Theology, the School of Law, and the Ethics and Privacy Working Group of the ADAPT centre, at Trinity College Dublin, Professor Brownsword will consider the regulation of emerging technologies. In particular, they are not easily regulated: getting the regulatory environment right is a considerable challenge. Legal frameworks tend to lose connection with their technological targets; even when connected, laws are often relatively ineffective; and ethicists are unable to agree on the interpretation and application of respect for human rights and human dignity as the measure of regulatory legitimacy. At the same time, new technologies insinuate themselves into the regulatory environment as tools that promise greater effectiveness. In a context of rapid technological change coupled with deep regulatory uncertainty, it will be suggested that the priorities are to safeguard the integrity of the infrastructure for human life, to preserve the conditions in which communities with moral aspirations may flourish, and to encourage broader and more inclusive debates about the social licence to be given to modern technologies.…