Data Protection laws are an important expression of the right to privacy. Personal information about us is now held by a large number of public and private bodies. Serious damage can result if it is not handled correctly.
We act for clients who may have been affected by misuse of their data under the Data Protection Act 1998. This includes claims for compensation for distress and financial losses arising from misuse or incorrect recording of personal data. We also have experiencing of securing injunctions to prevent the misuse of information and the removal of information which is false.
For example, we have acted for a parent who discovered that false information about him had been disseminated by a social services authority to rectify that error and to secure redress for the damage caused by these communications. We also acted for a person who lost their job because of an inaccurate disclosure of information by the police to his employer, securing for him both the removal of the inaccurate information and substantial damages for distress and financial loses.
We provide advice on EU data protection requirements. This has included advice on the impacts of the judgments in Digital Rights Ireland (DRI) and Schrems.
We represent the NGO interveners in the challenge to the UK’s new data retention law, the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 (R (Davis & Watson v Secretary of State for the Home Department, Open Rights Group, Privacy International and the Law Society intervening).
In 2015 we acted in an important Court of Appeal case challenging guidance which requires hospitals to provide information about patients to the Home Office without their consent, a case which is now in the Supreme Court.