Lachaux v Independent Print Ltd and another [2019] UKSC 27: A Summary (the test of serious harm in UK defamation cases)

Lachaux v Independent Print Ltd and another [2019] UKSC 27 To read the judgment click here. The Supreme Court has clarified the approach to the serious harm test in section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013 (“the Act”). Section 1: (1) A statement is not defamatory unless its publication has caused or is likely to […]

ICO Annual Report 2018/2019: A summary

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) published its 2018/2019 Annual Report on 8 July 2019. Here is a short summary: The number of enquiries the ICO received increased by 66% to just under half a million. The number of data protection complaints almost doubled compared with the previous year. Subject Access Requests made up the largest […]

Balancing human and machine perspectives: what is the ‘public interest’ in the AI era?

By Tom Orrell & Melissa Stock Privacy law has never been a straightforward affair in England. Its development has been piecemeal over the past two centuries.[1] In fact the laws that govern information today are spread across multiple frameworks, including: libel (protecting reputation), data protection (rights over the processing of personal data), breach of confidence […]

The E-Privacy Regulation: An Overview

This is an overview of the e-Privacy Regulation (‘ePR’), which will replace Directive 2002/58/EC (Regulation on Privacy and Electronic Communications), or ‘e-Privacy Directive’. The e-Privacy Directive protects the confidentiality of electronic communications and applies to publicly available electronic communications services. In the U.K., the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulation (“PECR”) implements the e-Privacy Directive. In […]