Category Archives: erasure

March 28, 2026 · 8:29 am

Erasure request in Children Act proceedings

[reposted from my LinkedIn account]

This is a rather extraordinary judgment in Children Act proceedings in the Family Court, in which a person who is an unregistered barrister and holds herself out as a lawyer, started out as a lay advocate to mother, then put herself forward to care for all of the children, seeking three times to be joined as a party.

In her skeleton argument in support of her final application to be joined, the court established – in a now wearily familiar way – that there were a number of cases of citations and propositions that were included as a result of using a “widely known publicly available AI tool to assist her in preparing [the argument]”.

She then informed the court that she was unable to continue to offer a home for the children or be part of the proceedings, that she no longer wished to proceed with the assessment to be either a special guardian or foster carer for the children, and sought for her assessment to be “formally withdrawn”. At the same time she asked for her data and that of her family members in the court bundle to be destroyed.

Unsurprisingly, the judge declined to do so (X v The Transcription Agency LLP and another [2024] 1 WLR 33 applied).

But more than that, in a judgment in which all of the parties’ identities (including the applicant public authority) are anonymised, she has been named, with the judge saying that she is “…a person who holds herself out as a lawyer. She offers, or has offered, paid legal work to members of the public. This is an important consideration. I am satisfied having read her written submissions lodged since the hearing that [she] still does not really acknowledge or accept that her actions in not checking the citations and propositions she included in her skeleton argument were serious”.

I think it’s important to note that the judge expresses some (although by no means complete) sympathy for aspects of the person’s position and personal circumstances, and the judgment states that she has self-referred to the Bar Standards Board. For that reason, I’m not naming in her in this post itself.

A, B, C, D, Re (Extension of assessment; Use of AI: hallucinations) [2026] EWFC 71 (B)

The views in this post (and indeed most posts on blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.

Could the right to erasure in data protection law break AI?

[reposted from my LinkedIn account]

I ask this only partly in jest.

The story of how ChatGPT refused to acknowledge the existence of “David Mayer” and some others, perhaps (probably?) because people with those names had exercised their erasure rights (such as the right at Articles 17 of the GDPR and the UK GDPR), raises the interesting question: if a sufficient number of people made such requests, would the LLM begin to fail?

If so, a further question of rights arises. If I, Jon Baines, exercise my erasure right against ChatGPT (or another platform/LLM), and it suppresses any processing of the words “Jon Baines”, what effect might that have on my namesake Jon Baines, and his travel company? Or Jon the Ocean Specialist working on the Ocean Watch program?

Because the words “Jon Baines”, in isolation are not my personal data. In isolation, they do not relate to me. A crude response to an erasure request, just as with any of the other crude approaches which AI is capable of (for instance in relation to accuracy), runs the risk of interfering with others’ rights, including rights to operate a business, our rights to freedom of expression.

I don’t have an answer, but this is just one extra point and possible flaw in AI which will no doubt play out over the coming years.

The views in this post (and indeed most posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.

Data protection v Defamation

[Sometimes I will upload posts I make on LinkedIn to this blog, because they’re easier to archive here: however they’re a bit more “conversational” than usual]

Can (or in what circumstances can) a data protection claim be brought on the basis that processing involves harm to reputation of a sort which, more orthodoxically*, would be brought in defamation?

His Honour Justice Parkes has refused an application by Dow Jones to strike out a data protection erasure claim (with an associated compensation claim) on the grounds that in reality it is a “statute-barred defamation complaint dressed up as a claim in data protection, and brought in data protection to avoid the rules which apply to defamation claims” (the application was also on Jameel grounds).

The judge says he “cannot see how [the claimants] can be summarily denied access to the court to make [their] case, employing a cause of action which is legitimately open to them… simply because in the past they have repeatedly threatened to claim in defamation, or because the claim is heavily based (as it is) on considerations of harm to reputation, or because, had they brought the claim in defamation, it would have faced very difficult obstacles”.

HHJ Parkes notably (ie this needs to go to trial) says that “the state of the law on the recoverability of damages for injury to reputation in non-defamation claims is uncertain and in flux” and that it is “unsuitable for determination on a summary application and probably requires the attention of an appellate court”.

It will be very interesting if this now makes it to trial. But never hold your breath on that folks.

[*yes, I did intend to coin the most awkward adverb possible]

The views in this post (and indeed most posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.

Category Archives: erasure

Erasure request in Children Act proceedings

Could the right to erasure in data protection law break AI?

Data protection v Defamation

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