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Northern Ireland
Bus Atha Cliath / Dublin Bus v The Data Protection Commissioner [2012]
Published on: 31/08/2012
Issues Covered:
Data Protection and GDPR
Article Authors The main content of this article was provided by the following authors.
Background This was a case in the Irish High Court, which relied heavily on English case law. A passenger on one of the Appellant‟s buses tripped and fell and subsequently issued 92personal injury proceedings. She requested access to CCTV footage of the incident pursuant s. 4 of the Data Protection Act 1988. The appellant refused, arguing that the information was privileged as prepared for the purposes of potential litigation. The Data Commissioner issued an enforcement notice requiring the appellant to provide a copy of the footage. The Appellant appealed the Commissioner‟s decision to the circuit court, where it was upheld, and then to the High Court.The Appellant argued that an exception to the right of access to data should apply where there are legal proceedings between a data requester and a data controller, arguing that the information should be the subject of a discovery request and relied on the English decision in Durant v Financial Services Authority where the access right in Data Protection Law was expressly held not to be "to assist [individuals], for example, to obtain discovery of documents that may assist them in litigation or complaints against third parties.”The High Court distinguished the case from that before it. In Durant the claimant had been seeking information that might possibly refer to him, not because it was personal data, but because he was fishing for information that he could use in proceedings against third parties. The documents he was seeking contained information about third parties and thus the question arose as to whether it was reasonable to disclose such information, invoking the discretion of the court.In the present case the court had no such discretion. The requester had a statutory right to access her personal data and the purpose of the request whether for litigation or not was irrelevant.http://bit.ly/UFlr7B

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Disclaimer The information in this article is provided as part of Legal Island's Employment Law Hub. We regret we are not able to respond to requests for specific legal or HR queries and recommend that professional advice is obtained before relying on information supplied anywhere within this article. This article is correct at 31/08/2012
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