Privacy
Pegasus spyware scandal: what lawyers need to know
Back in April 2021 I wrote an article for this newsletter about the Sunburst cyberattack, referencing a blog from Microsoft President Brad Smith in which he warned that mercenary-style technology companies, known as private sector offensive actors (PSOAs), are increasingly selling hacking tools to nation states. He specifically urged the US administration to take action […]
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UK mass surveillance breaches the ECHR
In the wake of the 2013 Edward Snowden affair, in which a former contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA) revealed that mass surveillance programmes were being operated by the UK and US intelligence services, a collection of journalists and human rights organisations brought a case against the UK government, challenging the bulk interception of […]
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Online Safety Bill upcoming
We previously reported on the Online Harms White Paper in 2019, in which the government set out various proposals to reduce illegal and harmful online activity. The government has now published its full response to the consultation process. The government plans to take forward most of its original proposals, in the form of a forthcoming […]
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Key data protection challenges for 2021
Data globalisation after Schrems II Browsing the web. Using apps. Communicating electronically. Shopping online. Working from home. Life as we know it relies on data flowing across geographical borders throughout the world. However, international data transfers have never been more scrutinised. Following the ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in […]
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ICO concludes Cambridge Analytica investigation
Although the internet was born out of a military research project, many of its original advocates touted its democratic potential to provide a platform for free exchange of ideas and creativity. But there were always voices of warning that the mass connectivity resulting from a global network could lead to something more Orwellian. The creeping […]
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NHS contact tracing app: teething troubles
Back in June, I wrote about the long delayed COVID-19 app, which was supposed to form a key part of the contact tracing system, famously hailed by Boris as “world beating”. The app was eventually launched on 24 September and has, according to government figures, been downloaded almost 20 million times. Although two million people […]
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Information Rights: A Practitioner’s Guide to Data Protection, Freedom of Information and other Information Rights
Retaining the position it has held since first publication, the fifth edition of this leading practitioner text on information law has been thoroughly re-worked to provide comprehensive coverage of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the GDPR. Information Rights has been cited by the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and others, and is used by […]
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How healthy is your data?
Can technology improve our health and transform healthcare? A whole panoply of tech companies are working on a range of products and services which aim to answer these questions in the affirmative. The burgeoning industry which has been dubbed “medtech” has already led to some fascinating (and controversial) partnerships, perhaps most notably involving Google Deepmind […]
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What happens to my data?
Increasingly, the information we need and use every day is stored, accessed and controlled online. We have become accustomed to the convenience and efficiency of being able to access significant swathes of information about ourselves, our business and the world at the tap of a button. Many of us accept that such convenience comes at […]
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Max Schrems: the return
In the wake of growing data protection concerns around the turn of the century, a framework dubbed “Safe Harbor” was agreed between the EU and the US in 2000, which essentially permitted transatlantic free-flow of personal data. Towards the end of 2015, as a result of one of several legal challenges brought by prolific Austrian […]
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Why privacy is the key to Facebook’s fake news problem
Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook seem to be in the news all the time at the moment, from Facebook’s involvement in the Cambridge Analytica saga to Mark Zuckerberg’s failure to appear before the “international grand committee of elected officials” in the Houses of Parliament in late November last year. The issues that Facebook face seem, on […]
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The Internet, Warts and All
The Internet, Warts and All: Free Speech, Privacy and Truth by Paul Bernal is not a law book; it is a book about seeking to understand an environment – the internet – in which the law operates. It is a book about law, but “It is also … about technology, about politics, about psychology, about […]
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