Steinfeld v Secretary of State for Education: Court of Appeal has Granted Leave to Appeal
It has recently been announced that the challenge to the prohibition on opposite sex couples entering into civil partnerships in England and Wales is due to be heard by the...
Gypsies by Birth not by Definition
On 31st August 2015 the Government introduced an amendment to the to Planning Policy for Traveller Sites (PPTS). This will redefine who can be regarded as a Gypsy or Traveller...
A New Regime for Data Protection in Europe
Almost four years after its initial proposal in January 2012, the finalised text of the General Data Protection Regulation (the Regulation) was agreed in December 2015. It is anticipated to...
State-sponsored virginity: South Africa’s Maidens’ Bursary Scheme
It’s clearly not yet 2016 in the UThukela District in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, where the municipality recently decided (for a second year) to institute the “Maidens’ Bursary Awards”. These...
The Right to be Forgotten: Grappling with Practicalities (Part 2)
In the last post we charted the development of the regulatory environment following the advent of the so-called ‘right to be forgotten’ (RTBF) following the landmark Costeja judgment. In this...
The Right to be Forgotten: European Reactions (Part 1)
On 13 May 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down judgment in Google Spain SL and Google Inc. v AEPD and Costeja (Costeja). This case...
Minorities suffer as the Supreme Court supports ‘suspicionless’ stop searches
In Roberts v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis and Another, the UK Supreme Court unanimously ruled that section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which...
Defending Privacy on a Global Scale: The Task of the Century
Ever since Edward Snowden revealed the existence of the United States’ and other governments’ massive and indiscriminate citizen surveillance system, various actors and organizations have attempted to document, discuss and...
The Draft Investigatory Powers Bill: A (Somewhat) Different Balance Between Privacy and Security
Recently it seems as though you can hardly get away from government mass surveillance programs (no pun intended). They even make an appearance in the latest James Bond film (as...
Couderc and Hachette Filipacchi Associés v. France: A New “Respect” for Private Life?
On 10 November 2015, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) handed down judgment in the case of Couderc and Hachette Filipacchi Associés v France. The...
The Safe Harbour Decision May be a Reaction Against the Snowdon Revelations, but the Direction of Travel is Clear
Data protection law, once the preserve of tragic anoraks with too much time on their hands (in the words of one prominent practitioner) has in recent months become a powerful...
Your Facebook Data Just Got a Lot More Secure- Dissecting the Safe Harbor Decision of the CJEU
For fifteen years companies on both sides of the Atlantic relied on Commission Decision 2000/520 (“Commission Decision”) to transfer personal data of EU citizens to USA data centres, until the...
