27/12/18
The EAT in Stefanko and others v Maritime Hotel Ltd held that an employee is entitled to a statement of particulars of employment even if they have worked for less than two months, provided they have completed one month of continuous employment. Section 1(2) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 sets…
27/12/18
A claim was brought by around 230 judges challenging the government's decision forcing younger judges to leave the judicial pension scheme. Members closest to retirement age were permitted to remain on the scheme, whilst younger judges were transferred to a less generous scheme. The judges claimed…
21/12/18
The Court of Appeal upheld the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal in Uber BV v Aslam & ors confirming Uber drivers' status as workers as opposed to self-employed contractors. Using an app provided by Uber, passengers can book rides with drivers. The drivers are free to choose when…
20/11/18
It is a factor of modern life that more and more aspects of education are moving onto digital platforms. From school websites to mobile applications, cloud services to distance learning, more and more personal data is being processed online, and in the case of schools this would involve the personal…
16/11/18
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has successfully prosecuted a car repair worker for stealing customer data, resulting in the first jail sentence for an offence brought under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. Mustafa Kasim, a former employee of Nationwide Accident Repair Services, pleaded…
18/10/18
Recent data protection headlines have been filled with the statement from the Surveillance Camera Commissioner that advanced CCTV programmes in place in Manchester's Trafford Centre are 'not proportionate', causing many to wonder how far security systems can go before they fall on the wrong side of…
02/10/18
Organisations who handle personal data in the course of their business have been handed a wake-up call by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) this month, with a number of fines being handed out for failures to pay the data protection fee. On 26 September 2018, the ICO reported that it…
27/09/18
On 26 September 2018, the ICO reported that it had begun formal enforcement action against 34 organisations that have failed to pay the new data protection fee. These organisations span across many sectors, including the NHS, recruitment, finance, government and accounting. Of note, the ICO has stated…
07/09/18
Today's headlines are being dominated by the story that British Airways have suffered an illicit data breach that has left the personal details and payment cards of 380,000 customers potentially exposed. The theft occurred via the airline's website and mobile app. It is hardly a surprise that many are…
27/07/18
On the 20 July 2018 the ICO published its Annual Report and Financial Statements 2017-18, specifically covering the period from 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018. With the introduction this year of GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, and the anticipated replacement of PECR with the E-Privacy Regulations…
27/07/18
With the advent of GDPR and its marked increase in responsibilities and potential sanctions, the importance of responding quickly to data breaches and cooperating with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has never been higher. This was exemplified by on 23rd June 2018, when Ticketmaster UK…
19/07/18
A Partnership is an arrangement where two or more interested parties agree to cooperate their assets and skills to advance their mutual interests. These interested parties can be individuals in their personal capacity or alternatively be corporate entities or even partnerships themselves. Many…
18/07/18
Sir Cliff Richard has today won a privacy case against the BBC over its coverage of a police raid of his home, the High Court awarding the singer £210,000 in damages. Richard, who sued both the BBC and South Yorkshire Police, claimed that the BBC's reporting of the 2014 raid was a 'serious…
12/07/18
Social network giants Facebook have this week been issued with the maximum £500,000 fine for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which saw users' data being harvested and subsequently exploited for targeted political marketing. Following the much publicised investigation, the…
24/05/18
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force in the UK today and will apply to all ' controllers ' and ' processors ' of ' personal data' . The GDPR is a substantial and ambitious piece of legislation which aims to overhaul attitudes towards the handling of personal data. The reform…
24/05/18
The current cap on Monetary Penalty Notices for Data Protection Act 1998 breaches is £500,000. That cap is going up to EUR 20,000,000 tomorrow with the coming into force of GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 and, to celebrate the imminent increase in its powers, the Information Commissioner's…
16/03/18
In January 2018, the Homes and Communities Agency split into two separate entities: Homes England and the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). The reasoning behind the move is to eliminate the perceived potential conflict of interests between the part of the body that regulates registered providers, and…
06/03/18
As of 25 May 2018, the fees that data controllers pay to the ICO are changing. A data controller is the legal person or body which determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data. Essentially this means that they are the person responsible for making decisions about why…
16/02/18
This week marks 100 days to go until the coming into force of the General Data Protection Regulation in the United Kingdom. The ICO has confirmed that there will be no "grace period" come 25 May; GDPR was published in 2016 and so we are in the transition period now. Hopefully by now you will have…
