|
Spring 2004
Two recent cases are important from a data protection perspective:
Durant -v- Financial Services Authority, UK Court of Appeal,
8 December 2003
This case involved the request by the claimant from the FSA of
certain manual data held by the FSA. The case examined the definitions
of "personal data", "manual data" and "relevant
filing system" under the UK's Data Protection Act 1998, which
are similar to equivalent Irish definitions in the Data Protection
Acts 1988 - 2003. The court held that: -
|
for
information contained in a document to constitute "personal
data" it must be biographical in some significant sense
and should have the data subject at its focus rather than making
reference to the data subject, or be related to some transaction
or event in which the data subject may have figured or may have
had an interest; |
|
information
in a manual file organised in alphabetical order was not sufficient
to bring those files within the meaning of "relevant filing
system" (and thus the definition of "manual data").
The court held that for information to fall within this definition
it must be easily accessible by means which are broadly equivalent
to access of personal information through a computerised system.
The court further held that the file must be structured and/or
indexed so as to enable easy location within it of any sub-files
of specific information about the data subject and their personal
data. |
Lindqvist (European Court of Justice, 6 November 2003)
This case concerned the privately run website of a catechist of
a Swedish parish, which contained general information and events
of the parish, but also included details of parish family members
and telephone numbers. The court held that the uploading of information
onto a website would constitute processing of personal data, for
the purposes of the Data Protection Directive. The court also confirmed
that the placing of information on a website did not constitute
the transfer of that information to third countries, particularly
because to find the information, one would have to conduct an Internet
search, and secondly the information was not sent automatically
to people who did not intentionally seek access to those pages.
|
