Category Archives: journalism

December 23, 2014 · 8:13 am

Are we all journalists?

The ICO has said that Global Witness can claim the data protection exemption for journalism, regarding their investigations in BSGR. This fascinating case continues to raise difficult and important questions.

Data protection law rightly gives strong protection to journalism; this is something that the 2012 Leveson inquiry dealt with in considerable detail, but, as the inquiry’s terms of reference were expressly concerned with “the press”, with “commercial journalism”, it didn’t really grapple with the rather profound question of “what is journalism?” But the question does need to be asked, because in the balancing exercise between privacy and freedom of expression too much weight afforded to one side can result in detriment to the other. If personal privacy is given too much weight, freedom of expression is weakened, but equally if “journalism” is construed too widely, and the protection afforded to journalism is consequently too wide, then privacy rights of individuals will suffer.

In 2008 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) was asked, in the Satamedia case, to consider the extent of the exemption from a large part of data protection law for processing of personal data for “journalistic” purposes. Article 9 of the European Data Protection Directive (the Directive) provides that

Member States shall provide for exemptions or derogations…for the processing of personal data carried out solely for journalistic purposes or the purpose of artistic or literary expression only if they are necessary to reconcile the right to privacy with the rules governing freedom of expression.

and recital 37 says

Whereas the processing of personal data for purposes of journalism or for purposes of literary of artistic expression, in particular in the audiovisual field, should qualify for exemption from the requirements of certain provisions of this Directive in so far as this is necessary to reconcile the fundamental rights of individuals with freedom of information and notably the right to receive and impart information

In Satamedia one of the questions the CJEU was asked to consider was whether the publishing of public-domain taxpayer data by two Swedish companies could be “regarded as the processing of personal data carried out solely for journalistic purposes within the meaning of Article 9 of the directive”. To this, the Court replied “yes”

Article 9 of Directive 95/46 is to be interpreted as meaning that the activities [in question], must be considered as activities involving the processing of personal data carried out ‘solely for journalistic purposes’, within the meaning of that provision, if the sole object of those activities is the disclosure to the public of information, opinions or ideas [emphasis added]

One can see that, to the extent that Article 9 is transposed effectively in domestic legislation, it affords significant and potentially wide protection for “journalism”. In the UK it is transposed as section 32 of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). This provides that

Personal data which are processed only for the special purposes are exempt from any provision to which this subsection relates if—

(a)the processing is undertaken with a view to the publication by any person of any journalistic, literary or artistic material,

(b)the data controller reasonably believes that, having regard in particular to the special importance of the public interest in freedom of expression, publication would be in the public interest, and

(c)the data controller reasonably believes that, in all the circumstances, compliance with that provision is incompatible with the special purposes.

where “the special purposes” are one or more of “the purposes of journalism”, “artistic purposes”, and “literary purposes”. Section 32 DPA exempts data processed for the special purposes from all of the data protection principles (save the 7th, data security, principle) and, importantly from provisions of sections 7 and 10. Section 7 is the “subject access” provision, and normally requires a data controller, upon receipt of written request by an individual, to inform them if their personal data is being processed, and, if it is, to give the particulars and to “communicate” the data to the individual. Section 10 broadly allows a data subject to object to processing which is likely to cause substantial damage or substantial distress, and to require the data to controller to cease (or not begin) processing (and the data controller must either comply or state reasons why it will not). Personal data processed for the special purposes are, therefore, exempt from subject access and from the right to prevent processing likely to cause damage or distress. It is not difficult to see why – if the subject of, say, investigative journalism, could find out what a journalist was doing, and prevent her from doing it, freedom of expression would be inordinately harmed.

The issue of the extent of the journalistic data protection exemption came into sharp focus towards the end of last year, when Benny Steinmetz and three other claimants employed by or associated with mining and minerals group Benny Steinmetz Group Resources (BSGR) brought proceedings in the High Court under the DPA seeking orders that would require campaigning group Global Witness to comply with subject access requests by the claimants, and to cease processing their data. The BSGR claimants had previously asked the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), pursuant to the latter’s duties under section 42 DPA, to assess the likelihood of the lawfulness of Global Witness’s processing, and the ICO had determined that it was unlikely that Global Witness were complying with their obligations under the DPA.

However, under section 32(4) DPA, if, in any relevant proceedings, the data controller claims (or it appears to the court) that the processing in question was for the special purposes and with a view to publication, the court must stay the proceedings in order for the ICO to consider whether to make a specific “special purposes” determination by the ICO. Such a determination would be (under section 45 DPA) that the processing was not for the special purposes nor was it with a view to publication, and it would result in a “special information notice”. Such a stay was applied to the BSGR proceedings and, on 15 December, after some considerable wait, the ICO conveyed to the parties that it was “satisfied that Global Witness is only processing the personal data requested … for the purposes of journalism”. Accordingly, no special information notice was served, and the proceedings remain stayed. Although media reports (e.g. Guardian and Financial Times) talk of appeals and tribunals, no direct appeal right exists for a data subject in these circumstances, so, if as seems likely, BSGR want to revive the proceedings, they will presumably either have to apply to have the stay lifted or/and issue judicial review proceedings against the ICO.

The case remains fascinating. It is easy to applaud a decision in which a plucky environmental campaign group claims journalistic data protection exemption regarding its investigations of a huge mining group. But would people be so quick to support, say, a fascist group which decided to investigate and publish private information about anti-fascist campaigners? Could that group also gain data protection exemption claiming that the sole object of their processing was the disclosure to the public of information, opinions or ideas? Global Witness say that

The ruling confirms that the Section 32 exemption for journalism in the Data Protection Act applies to anyone engaged in public-interest reporting, not just the conventional media

but it is not immediately clear from where they import the “public-interest” aspect – this does not appear, at least not in explicit terms, in either the Directive or the DPA. It is possible that it can be inferred, when one considers that processing for special purposes which is not in the public interest might constitute an interference with respect for data subjects’ fundamental rights and freedoms (per recital 2 of the Directive). And, of course, with talk about public interest journalism, we walk straight back into the arguments provoked by the Leveson inquiry.

Furthermore, one notes that the Directive talks about exemption for processing of personal data carried out solely for journalistic purposes, and the DPA says “personal data which are processed only for the special purposes are exempt…”. This was why I emphasised the words in the Satamedia judgment quoted above, which talks similarly of the exemption applying if the “sole object of those activities is the disclosure to the public of information, opinions or ideas”. One might ask whether a campaigning group’s sole or only purpose for processing personal data is for journalism. Might they not, in processing the data, be trying to achieve further ends? Might, in fact, one say that the people who engage solely in the disclosure to public of information, opinions or ideas are in fact those we more traditionally think of in these terms…the press, the commercial journalists?

P.S. Global Witness have uploaded a copy of the ICO’s decision letter. This clarifies that the latter was satisfied that the former was processing for the special purposes because it was part of “campaigning journalism” even though the proposed future publication of the information “forms part of a wider campaign to promote a particular cause”. This chimes with the ICO’s data protection guidance for the media, but it will be interesting if it is challenged on the basis that it doesn’t support a view that the processing is “only” or “solely” for the special purposes.

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

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December 8, 2014 · 3:08 pm

Russell Brand and the domestic purposes exemption in the Data Protection Act

Was a now-deleted tweet by Russell Brand, revealing a journalist’s private number, caught by data protection law?

Data protection law applies to anyone who “processes” (which includes “disclosure…by transmission”) “personal data” (data relating to an identifiable living individual) as a “data controller” (the person who determines the purposes for which and the manner in which the processing occurs). Rather dramatically, in strict terms, this means that most individuals actually and regularly process personal data as data controllers. And nearly everyone would be caught by the obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), were it not for the exemption at section 36. This provides that

Personal data processed by an individual only for the purposes of that individual’s personal, family or household affairs (including recreational purposes) are exempt from the data protection principles and the provisions of Parts II and III

Data protection nerds will spot that exemption from the data protection principles and Parts II and III of the DPA is effectively an exemption from whole Act. So in general terms individuals who restrict their processing of personal data to domestic purposes are outwith the DPA’s ambit.

The extent of this exemption in terms of publication of information on the internet is subject to some disagreement. On one side is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) who say in their guidance that it applies when an individual uses an online forum purely for domestic purposes, and on the other side are the Court of Justice of the European Union (and me) who said in the 2003 Lindqvist case that

The act of referring, on an internet page, to various persons and identifying them by name or by other means, for instance by giving their telephone number…constitutes ‘the processing of personal data…[and] is not covered by any of the exceptionsin Article 3(2) of Directive 95/46 [section 36 of the DPA transposes Article 3(2) into domestic law]

Nonetheless, it is clear that publishing personal data on the internet for reasons not purely domestic constitutes an act of processing to which the DPA applies (let us assume that the act of publishing was a deliberate one, determined by the publisher). So when the comedian Russell Brand today decided to tweet a picture of a journalist’s business card, with an arrow pointing towards the journalist’s mobile phone number (which was not, for what it’s worth, already in the public domain – I checked with a Google search) he was processing that journalist’s personal data (note that data relating to an individual’s business life is still their personal data). Can he avail himself of the DPA domestic purposes exemption? No, says the CJEU, of course, following Lindqvist. But no, also, would surely say the ICO: this act by Brand was not purely domestic. Brand has 8.7 million twitter followers – I have no doubt that some will have taken the tweet as an invitation to call the journalist. It is quite possible that some of those calls will be offensive, or abusive, or even threatening.

Whilst I have been drafting this blog post Brand has deleted the tweet: that is to his credit. But of course, when you have so many millions of followers, the damage is already done – the picture is saved to hard drives, is mirrored by other sites, is emailed around. And, I am sure, the journalist will have to change his number, and maybe not much harm will have been caused, but the tweet was nasty, and unfair (although I have no doubt Brand was provoked in some way). If it was unfair (and lacking a legal basis for the publication) it was in contravention of the first data protection principle which requires that personal data be processed fairly and lawfully and with an appropriate legitimating condition. And because – as I submit –  Brand cannot plead the domestic purposes exemption, it was in contravention of the DPA. However, whether the journalist will take any private action, and whether the ICO will take any enforcement action, I doubt.

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

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October 20, 2014 · 4:13 pm

Clegg calls for a data protection public interest defence (where there already is one)

UPDATE: 22.10.14

It appears that Clegg’s comments were in the context of proposed amendments to the Crime and Criminal Justice Bill, and the Guardian reports that

The amendments propose a new defence for journalists who unlawfully obtain personal data (section 55 of the Data Protection Act) where they do so as part of a story that is in the public interest

But I’m not sure how this could add anything to the existing section 55 provisions which I discuss below, which mean that an offence is not committed if “the obtaining, disclosing or procuring [of personal data without the consent of the data controller] was justified as being in the public interest” – it will be interesting to see the wording of the amendments.

Interestingly it seems that another proposed amendment would be to introduce custodial sentences for section 55 offences. One wonders if the elevated public interest protections for journalists are a sop to the press, who have long lobbied against custodial sentences for this offence.

END UPDATE.

In an interesting development of the tendency of politicians to call for laws which aren’t really necessary, Nick Clegg has apparently called for data protection law to be changed to what it already says

The Telegraph reports that Nick Clegg has called for changes to data protection, bribery and other laws to “give journalists more protection when carrying out their job”. The more informed of you will have spotted the error here: data protection law at least already carries a strong exemption for journalistic activities. Clegg is quoted as saying

There should be a public interest defence put in law – you would probably need to put it in the Data Protection Act, the Bribery Act, maybe one or two other laws as well – where you enshrine a public interest defence for the press so that where you are going after information and you are being challenged, you can set out a public interest defence to do so

Section 32 of the Data Protection Act 1998 provides an exemption to almost all of a data controller’s obligations under the Act regarding the processing of personal data if

(a)the processing is undertaken with a view to the publication by any person of any journalistic…material,

(b)the data controller reasonably believes that, having regard in particular to the special importance of the public interest in freedom of expression, publication would be in the public interest, and

(c)the data controller reasonably believes that, in all the circumstances, compliance with that provision is incompatible with [the publication by any person of any journalistic…material]

This provision (described as “extremely wide” at Bill stage1) was considered at length in Part H of the report of the Leveson Inquiry into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press, which looked at the press and data protection. Indeed, Leveson recommended section 32 be amended and narrowed in scope. Notably, he recommended that the current subjective test (“the data controller reasonably believes”) should be changed so that section 32 could only be relied on if inter alia “objectively the likely interference with privacy resulting from the processing of the data is outweighed by the public interest in publication” (emphasis added). I know we’ve all forgotten about Leveson now, and the Press look on the report as though it emerged, without context, from some infernal pit, but even so, I’m surprised Mr Clegg is calling for the introduction of a provision that’s already there.

Perhaps, one might pipe up, he was talking about the section 55 DPA offence provisions (indeed, the sub-heading to the Telegraph article does talk in terms of journalists being protected “when being prosecuted”. So let’s look at that: section 55(2)(d) provides in terms that the elements of the offence of unlawful obtaining etc of personal data are not made out if

 in the particular circumstances the obtaining, disclosing or procuring was justified as being in the public interest

So, we have not just a public interest defence to a prosecution, but, even stronger, a public interest provision which means an offence is not even committed if the acts were justified as being in the public interest.

Maybe Mr Clegg thinks that public interest provision should be made even stronger when journalists are involved. But I’m not sure it realistically could be. Nonetheless, I await further announcements with interest.

1Hansard, HC, vo1315, col 602, 2 July 1998 (as cited in Philip Coppel QC’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry).

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September 29, 2014 · 1:18 pm

Brooks Newmark, the press, and “the other woman”

UPDATE: 30.09.14 Sunday Mirror editor Lloyd Embley is reported by the BBC and other media outlets to have apologised for the use of women’s photos (it transpires that two women’s images appropriated), saying

We thought that pictures used by the investigation were posed by models, but we now know that some real pictures were used. At no point has the Sunday Mirror published any of these images, but we would like to apologise to the women involved for their use in the investigation

What I think is interesting here is the implicit admission that (consenting) models could have been used in the fake profiles. Does this mean therefore, the processing of the (non-consenting) women’s personal data was not done in the reasonable belief that it was in the public interest?

Finally, I think it’s pretty shoddy that former Culture Secretary Maria Miller resorts to victim-blaming, and missing the point, when she is reported to have said that the story “showed why people had to be very careful about the sorts of images they took of themselves and put on the internet”

END UPDATE.

With most sex scandals involving politicians, there is “the other person”. For every Profumo, a Keeler;  for every Mellor, a de Sancha; for every Clinton, a Lewinsky. More often than not the rights and dignity of these others are trampled in the rush to revel in outrage at the politicians’ behaviour. But in the latest, rather tedious, such scandal, the person whose rights have been trampled was not even “the other person”, because there was no other person. Rather, it was a Swedish woman* whose image was appropriated by a journalist without her permission or even her knowledge. This raises the question of whether such use, by the journalist, and the Sunday Mirror, which ran the exposé, was in accordance with their obligations under data protection and other privacy laws.

The story run by the Sunday Mirror told of how a freelance journalist set up a fake social media profile, purportedly of a young PR girl called Sophie with a rather implausible interest in middle-aged Tory MPs. He apparently managed to snare the Minister for Civil Society and married father of five, Brooks Newmark, and encourage him into sending explicit photographs of himself. The result was that the newspaper got a lurid scoop, and the Minister subsequently resigned. Questions are being asked about the ethics of the journalism involved, and there are suggestions that this could be the first difficult test for IPSO, the new Independent Press Standards Organisation.

But for me much the most unpleasant part of this unpleasant story was that the journalist appears to have decided to attach to the fake twitter profile the image of a Swedish woman. It’s not clear where he got this from, but it is understood that the same image had apparently already appeared on several fake Facebook accounts (it is not suggested, I think, that the same journalist was responsible for those accounts). The woman is reported to be distressed at the appropriation:

It feels really unpleasant…I have received lot of emails, text messages and phone calls from various countries on this today. It feels unreal…I do not want to be exploited in this way and someone has used my image like this feels really awful, both for me and the others involved in this. [Google translation of original Swedish]

Under European and domestic law the image of an identifiable individual is their personal data. Anyone “processing” such data as a data controller (“the person who (either alone or jointly or in common with other persons) determines the purposes for which and the manner in which any personal data are, or are to be, processed”) has to do so in accordance with the law. Such processing as happened here, both by the freelance journalist, when setting up and operating the social media account(s), and by the Sunday Mirror, in publishing the story, is covered by the UK Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). This will be the case even though the person whose image was appropriated is in Sweden. The DPA requires, among other things, that processing of personal data be “fair and lawful”. It affords aggrieved individuals the right to bring civil claims for compensation for damage and distress arising from contraventions of data controllers’ obligations under the DPA. It also affords them the right to ask the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for an assessment of the likelihood (or not) that processing was in compliance with the DPA.

However, section 32 of the DPA also gives journalism a very broad exemption from almost all of the Act, if the processing is undertaken with a view to publication, and the data controller reasonably believes that publication would be in the public interest and that compliance with the DPA would be incompatible with the purposes of journalism. As the ICO says

The scope of the exemption is very broad. It can disapply almost all of the DPA’s provisions, and gives the media a significant leeway to decide for themselves what is in the public interest

The two data controllers here (the freelancer and the paper) would presumably have little problem satisfying a court, or the ICO, that when it came to processing of Brooks Newmark’s personal data, they acted in the reasonable belief that the public interest justified the processing. But one wonders to what extent they even considered the processing of (and associated intrusion into the private life of) the Swedish woman whose image was appropriated. Supposing they didn’t even consider this processing – could they reasonably say they that they reasonably believed it to have been in the public interest?

These are complex questions, and the breadth and ambit of the section 32 exemption are likely to be tested in litigation between the mining and minerals company BSG and the campaigning group Global Witness (currently stalled/being considered at the ICO). But even if a claim or complaint under DPA would be a tricky one to make, there are other legal issues raised. Perhaps in part because of the breadth of the section 32 DPA exemption (and perhaps because of the low chance of significant damages under the DPA), claims of press intrusion into private lives are more commonly brought under the cause of action of “misuse of private information “, confirmed – it would seem – as a tort, in the ruling of Mr Justice Tugendhat in Vidal Hall and Ors v Google Inc [2014] EWHC 13 (QB), earlier this year. Damage awards for successful claims in misuse of private information have been known to be in the tens of thousands of pounds – most notably recently an award of £10,000 for Paul Weller’s children, after photographs taken covertly and without consent had been published in the Mail Online.

IPSO expects journalists to abide by the Editor’s Code, Clause 3 of which says

i) Everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private and family life, home, health and correspondence, including digital communications.

ii) Editors will be expected to justify intrusions into any individual’s private life without consent. Account will be taken of the complainant’s own public disclosures of information

and the ICO will take this Code into account when considering complaints about journalistic processing of personal data. One notes that “account will be taken of the complainant’s own public disclosures of information”, but one hopes that this would not be seen to justify the unfair and unethical appropriation of images found elsewhere on the internet.

*I’ve deliberately, although rather pointlessly – given their proliferation in other media – avoided naming the woman in question, or posting her photograph

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July 4, 2014 · 10:06 am

We’re looking into it

The news is awash with reports that the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is “opening an investigation” into Facebook’s rather creepy research experiment, in conjunction with US universities, in which it apparently altered the users’ news feeds to elicit either positive or negative emotional responses. Thus, the BBC says “Facebook faces UK probe over emotion study”, SC Magazine says “ICO probes Facebook data privacy” and the Financial Times says “UK data regulator probes Facebook over psychological experiment”.

As well as prompting one to question some journalists’ obsession with probes, this also leads one to look at the basis for these stories. It appears to lie in a quote from an ICO spokesman, given I think originally to the online IT news outlet The Register

The Register asked the office of the UK’s Information Commissioner if it planned to probe Facebook following widespread criticism of its motives.

“We’re aware of this issue, and will be speaking to Facebook, as well as liaising with the Irish data protection authority, to learn more about the circumstances,” a spokesman told us.
So, the ICO is aware of the issue and will be speaking to Facebook and to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner’s office. This doesn’t quite match up to the rather hyperbolic news headlines. And there’s a good reason for this – the ICO is highly unlikely to have any power to investigate, let alone take action. Facebook, along with many other tech/social media companies, has its non-US headquarters in Ireland. This is partly for taxation reasons and partly because of access to high-skilled, relatively low cost labour. However, some companies – Facebook is one, LinkedIn another – have another reason, evidenced by the legal agreements that users enter into: because the agreement is with “Facebook Ireland”, then Ireland is deemed to be the relevant jurisdiction for data protection purposes. And, fairly or not, the Irish data protection regime is generally perceived to be relatively “friendly” towards business.
 
These jurisdictional issues are by no means clear cut – in 2013  a German data protection authority tried to exercise powers to stop Facebook imposing a “real name only” policy.
 
Furthermore, as the Court of Justice of the European Union recognised in the recent Google Spain case, the issue of territorial responsibilities and jurisdiction can be highly complex. The Court held there that, as Google had
 
[set] up in a Member State a branch or subsidiary which is intended to promote and sell advertising space offered by that engine and which orientates its activity towards the inhabitants of that Member State
 
it was processing personal data in that Member State (Spain). Facebook does have a large UK corporate office with some responsibility for sales. It is just possible that this could give the ICO, as domestic data protection authority, some power to investigate. And if or when the draft European General Data Protection Regulation gets passed, fundamental shifts could take place, extending even, under Article 3(2) to bringing data controllers outside the EU within jurisdiction, where they are offering goods or services to (or monitoring) data subjects in the EU.
 
But the question here is really whether the ICO will assert any purported power to investigate, when the Irish DPC is much more clearly placed to do so (albeit it with terribly limited resources). I think it’s highly unlikely, despite all the media reports. In fact, if the ICO does investigate, and it leads to any sort of enforcement action, I will eat my hat*.
 
*I reserve the right to specify what sort of hat

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April 25, 2014 · 6:43 am

Data Protection for Baddies

Should Chris Packham’s admirable attempts to expose the cruelties of hunting in Malta be restrained by data protection law? And who is protected by the data protection exemption for journalism?

I tend sometimes to lack conviction, but one thing I am pretty clear about is that I am not on the side of people who indiscriminately shoot millions of birds, and whose spokesman tries to attack someone by mocking their well-documented mental health problems. So, when I hear that the FNKF, the Maltese “Federation for Hunting and Conservation” has

presented a judicial protest against the [Maltese] Commissioner of Police and the Commissioner for Data Protection, for allegedly not intervening in “contemplated” or possible breaches of privacy rules

with the claim being that they have failed to take action to prevent

BBC Springwatch presenter Chris Packham [from] violating hunters’ privacy by “planning to enter hunters’ private property” and by posting his video documentary on YouTube, which would involve filming them without their consent

My first thought is that this is an outrageous attempt to manipulate European privacy and data protection laws to try to prevent legitimate scruting of activities which sections of society find offensive and unacceptable. It’s my first thought, and my lasting one, but it does throw some interesting light on how such laws can potentially be used to advance or support causes which might not be morally or ethically attractive. (Thus it was that, in 2009, a former BNP member was prosecuted under section 55 the UK Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA 1998) for publishing a list of party members on the internet. Those members, however reprehensible their views or actions, had had their sensitive personal data unlawfully processed, and attracted the protection of the DPA (although the derisory £200 fine the offender received barely served as a deterrent)).

I do not profess to being an expert in Maltese Data Protection law, but, as a member state of the European Union, Malta was obliged to implement Directive EC/95/46 on the Protection of Individuals with regard to the Processing of Personal Data (which it did in its Data Protection Act of 2001). The Directive is the bedrock of all European data protection law, generally containing minimum standards which member states must implement in domestic law, but often allowing them to legislate beyond those minimum standards.

It may well be that the activities of Chris Packham et al do engage Maltese data protection law. In fact, if, for instance, film footage or other information which identifies individuals is recorded and broadcast in other countries in the European Union, it would be likely to constitute an act of “processing” under Article 2(b) of the Directive which would engage data protection law in whichever member state it was processed.

Data protection law at European level has a scope whose potential breadth has been described as “breath-taking”. “Personal data” is “any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person” (that is “one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity”), and “processing” encompasses “any operation or set of operations which is performed upon personal data, whether or not by automatic means, such as collection, recording, organization, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, blocking, erasure or destruction”.

However, the broad scope does not necessarily means broad prohibitions on activities involving processing. Personal data must be processed “fairly and lawfully”, and can (broadly) be processed without the data subject’s consent in circumstances where there is a legal obligation to do so, or where it is necessary in the public interest, or necessary where the legitimate interests of the person processing it, or of a third party, outweigh the interests for fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject. These legitimising conditions are implemented into the Maltese Data Protection Act 2001 (at section 9), so it can be seen that the FKNF’s claim that Packham requires the hunters’ consent to film might not have legs.

Moreover, Article 9 of the Directive, transposed in part at section 6 of the 2001 Maltese Act, provides for an exemption to most of the general data protection obligations where the processing is for journalistic purposes, which almost certainly be engaged for Packham’s activities. Whether, however, any other Maltese laws might apply is, I’m afraid, well outside my area of knowledge.

But what about activists who might not normally operate under the banner of “journalism”? What if Packham were, rather than a BBC journalist/presenter, “only” a naturalist? Would he be able to claim the journalistic data protection exemption?

Some of these sorts of issues are currently edging towards trial in litigation brought in the UK, under the DPA 1998, by a mining corporation (or, in its own words, a “diversified natural resources business”), BSG Resources, against Global Witness, an NGO one of whose stated goals is to “expose the corrupt exploitation of natural resources and international trade systems”. BSGR’s claims are several, but are all made under the DPA 1998, and derive from the fact they have sought to make subject access requests to Global Witness to know what personal data of the BSGR claimants is being processed, for what purposes and to whom it is being or may be disclosed. Notably, BSGR have chosen to upload their grounds of claim for all to see. For more background on this see the ever-excellent Panopticon blog, and this article in The Economist.

This strikes me as a potentially hugely significant case, firstly because it illustrates how data protection is increasingly being used to litigate matters more traditionally seen as being in the area of defamation law, or the tort of misuse of private information, but secondly because it goes to the heart of questions about what journalism is, who journalists are and what legal protection (and obligations) those who don’t fit the traditional model/definition of journalism have or can claim.

I plan to blog in more detail on this case in due course, but for the time being I want to make an observation. Those who know me will not have too much trouble guessing on whose side my sympathies would tend to fall in the BSGR/Global Witness litigation, but I am not so sure how I would feel about extending journalism privileges to, say, an extremist group who were researching the activities of their opponents with a view to publishing those opponents’ (sensitive) personal data on the internet. If society wishes to extend the scope of protection traditionally afforded to journalists to political activists, or citizen bloggers, or tweeters, it needs to be very careful that it understands the implications of doing so. Freedom of expression and privacy rights coexist in a complex relationship, which ideally should be an evenly balanced one. Restricting the scope of data protection law, by extending the scope of the exemption for journalistic activities, could upset that balance.

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December 30, 2013 · 1:47 pm

Making Motorman names public

UPDATE: 7 January 2014

In the comments to this piece the requester has informed me that the ICO is appealing this decision. Given how long the Upper Tribunal takes to turn things round, I don’t think we’ll be seeing these names for some time (if at all – if the ICO succeeds). I’ll keep the original post up though for the time being

END UPDATE.

So…will we get to see the names of the Operation Motorman journalists within the next week? Or will there need to be a bit of an extra push?

I tweeted earlier today to the effect that time is nearly up for the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to disclose names of some of the journalists named in the ICO “What Price Privacy” report as having engaged the services of rogue private investigator Steve Whittamore, who was convicted in 2005  under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) of offences of illegally obtaining personal data.

My blog post from earlier this month describes how the First-tier Tribunal ordered on 29 November 2013, after a rather convoluted series of hearings on the papers, that the ICO disclose within 35 days

many, but not all, of the names of journalists recorded…as clients of the investigator at the heart of Operation Motorman…together with the names of the media outlet with which [they were recorded as having been] associated at the time

By my calculations, those 35 days are up at 17:00 next Monday (see part 2.8 of Civil Procedure Rules and rule 12(1) of The Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (General Regulatory Chamber) Rules 2009). This is, of course, unless the ICO has appealed the decision, but, as at 19 December, no such appeal appeared to have been lodged.

It is possible, however – bear in mind that the Order was for disclosure within 35 days – that the information has already been disclosed to the applicant – a Mr Christopher Colenso-Dunne. If that is the case, and if the applicant chooses not to make it public, then we may not yet see those names (it has been suggested to me that the person by that name for whom Google gives a search return may not be the applicant here). The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) does not, in strict terms, oblige a public authority to make information public. Rather, it must “communicate” information to a person who has requested it (subject to the application of any exemptions). Although it is often said that disclosure under FOIA is to be taken as disclosure to the world at large, this operates as a concept, not a requirement. Some public authorities do, however, operate a “disclosure log” where some or all information disclosed under FOIA is made publicly available.

The ICO itself has a disclosure log, although it restricts this to responses “which we feel are of wider public interest”. There also appears to be a bit of lag in uploading responses (the last was one from 18 October).

One would certainly hope that, if the ICO is not appealing the decision, it will proactively disclose the information ordered to be disclosed. But, just in case, I’ve made a FOIA request for the same information, via whatdotheyknow.com, where it would be available for anyone to see (and which, of course, I’ll withdraw if the information becomes public in the interim).

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December 6, 2013 · 4:00 pm

For Shame

A newspaper says police are “naming and shaming” drivers who have been charged with, but not convicted, of drink-driving offences. Sussex Police say they are merely “naming” the drivers, but do not appear to feel the need to correct the media reports.

The risk for social media users of being held in contempt of court was highlighted this week by the Attorney General, who has said that, in future, the advisory notes issued to “traditional” media on individual cases will now be made more widely available (published on the gov.uk website and twitter).

With this in mind I was concerned to see that Sussex Police were reported by the Eastbourne Herald to be “naming and shaming” drivers arrested and charged with drink-driving

Police have said this year they are ‘naming and shaming’ everyone they arrest in connection with drink driving

The report goes on to quote Chief Inspector Natalie Moloney as saying

It is sad that so many people ignored the warnings that we would be looking for drink-drivers and have been charged with offences within hours of the start of the campaign. The arrests and the naming of those charged with offences will continue across the county throughout the month

This seemed to me potentially to engage the provisions of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 of an offence of strict liability “whereby conduct may be treated as a contempt of court as tending to interfere with the course of justice in particular legal proceedings regardless of intent to do so”, because it is a publication addressed to the public at large, about active proceedings. For an offence to be committed the publication must give rise to a substantial risk that the course of justice in the proceedings in question will be seriously impeded or prejudiced. I am not convinced that would be the case, but, nonetheless, I was surprised to see a police force effectively being reported as saying that  naming someone only charged with an offence gives rise to “shame” (it does nothing of the sort, of course, given the legal maxim of “innocent until proven guilty”). So I asked the Sussex Police twitter account

Are you really running a policy of “shaming” people by naming them prior to a trial?

to which they replied

We are not “shaming” anyone. We are naming those charged with a drink-related driving offence as we do for a range of offences

That was fair enough, (although one might ask Chief Inspector Moloney why an innocent person would heed a warning that police were looking for drink- drivers) but, as it appeared that this “naming-not-shaming” initiative had been launched in conjunction with the media, I wondered if they would be asking the Herald to correct its misleading article. Sussex Police replied

The campaign doesn’t aim to ‘shame’, but rather to deter & the article does not attribute the phrase to us

but this is simply not true: the article may not directly attribute the phrase to the police, but it does so indirectly

Police have said this year they are ‘naming and shaming’…

I have had no response yet to my further tweet pointing this out.

So, in a week when contempt via social media is very much in the headlines, we appear to have an online newspaper report which suggests there is shame attached to being charged with an offence, and which attributes this phrase to a police force, who seem unconcerned about correcting it. Odd.

For the avoidance of doubt, I should say that I have no sympathy whatsoever with people convicted of drink driving offences, but, to suggest there is “shame” in being charged with an offence prior to trial, is to go against centuries of presumption of innocence.

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November 29, 2013 · 5:07 pm

ICO must disclose Motorman journalists’ names

The ICO has been ordered to disclose the names of some of the journalists referred to in “What Price Privacy” as having engaged the services of rogue private investigator Steve Whittamore

In April 2006 the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) published “What Price Privacy?” on what it described as “the unlawful trade in personal information”. The report revealed

evidence of systematic breaches in personal privacy that amount to an unlawful trade in confidential personal information

Those breaches were potential criminal offences under section 55 of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), and the report – which drew on the findings of documentation seized during Operation Motorman, arising from the activities of private investigator Steve Whittamore, said

Among the ‘buyers’ are many journalists looking for a story. In one major case investigated by the ICO, the evidence included records of information supplied to 305 named journalists working for a range of newspapers

In December 2006 the six-month follow-up report “What Price Privacy Now?” was published. This gave further details about the 305 journalists mentioned in the first report, and broke the data down into “Publication”, “Number of transactions positively identified” and “Number of journalists/clients using the services”.

And of course, this trade in personal information formed the basis of the first module (“The relationship between the press and the public and looks at phone-hacking and other potentially illegal behaviour”) of part one of Lord Justice (as he was then) Leveson’s inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the press.

In 2011 a request was made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) to the ICO, for (1) “the number of transactions per journalist of each of the 305 identified journalists for each of the 32 identified publications” and (2) the journalists’ identities. The first request was refused by the ICO, on the basis that it would require a search through 17000 documents, and, therefore, section 12 of FOIA provided a statutory cost limit which meant it did not have to comply. Having been given these apparent facts the requester dropped his first request, but pursued the second. This was also refused, on the basis that the information was exempt under section 40(2) and section 44 of FOIA (the latter by virtue of the statutory bar on disclosure at section 59 of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA)), in both cases because disclosure would be an unfair and unlawful disclosure of personal data of the journalists involved.

Because the ICO is the regulator of FOIA, a complaint about its handling of a FOIA request falls to be determined by the same office (a statutory arrangement which was to be described as an “unusual, and unsatisfactory, feature” of the law by the First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights) (FTT)). Accordingly, the office (describing itself as “the Commissioner”, as distinct from the “ICO”, which was the authority refusing the request) issued a Decision Notice which held that

the ICO correctly withheld the information by virtue of section 40(2). He has also found that the information could also be correctly withheld by virtue of section 44(1)

This decision was appealed to the FTT, which has today, after what has clearly been complex and strongly argued litigation, handed down three judgments (1, 2, 3) (two of which were preliminary or interim rulings, publication of which has been held back until now) which are, taken together, extraordinary, both for their criticism of the ICO, and for the outcome.

Taken as a whole the judgments find that, regarding some of the journalists named in the information held by the ICO, the balance of the public interest in receiving the information outweighs the legitimate interest of an individual to protect his or her privacy.

The FTT found that the information wasn’t sensitive personal data (which is afforded a greater level of protection by the DPA). This is at first blush rather surprising: section 2(2) of the DPA provides that sensitive data will be, inter alia, “data consisting of information as to…the commission or alleged commission by [the data subject] of any offence”. However, the FTT found that, although the information

does contain evidence that the investigator [Whittamore] engaged by the journalist committed, or contemplated committing, criminal activity. And, self-evidently, it discloses that the investigator received some form of instruction from the journalist. But there is no suggestion…that the journalist had instructed the investigator to use unlawful methods or that he or she had turned a blind eye to their adoption or, indeed, whether he or she had in fact expressly forbidden the investigator from doing anything that was not strictly legal [para 11 of third ruling]

The FTT had also invited submissions from the parties on the significance to the instant case of some of the passages from the Leveson inquiry, and, having received them, took note from those passages of

the issues of impropriety (which, while very possibly not involving criminality on journalists’ part, is nevertheless serious) and corporate governance in the context of the privacy rights of the [journalists]. We believe that, together, they give rise to a very substantial interest in the public knowing the identities of those who instructed the investigators [para 18 of third ruling]

But also tending towards favouring disclosure in the public interest was Leveson’s suggested criticisms of the ICO

We also give some weight to the public interest in knowing more about the information which was in the possession of the ICO and which the Leveson Report suggested it failed adequately to pursue [para 18 of third ruling]

The FTT noted the interests of the journalists, for instance that they would have had an expectation that details of their day-to-day professional activities would remain confidential, and that the Commissioner had argued that

publication of information indicating that they had engaged the services of the investigators concerned would be so unfair as to outweigh the factors in favour of disclosure [para 19 of third ruling]

but the FTT also noted, in effect, that the journalists involved must have had some idea of what was going on when they engaged Whittamore

it must have been well known within the profession what types of information could be obtained with the help of investigators, even if the means of obtaining it were not fully understood. The rights of individuals under data protection laws would also have been widely known at the time. In those circumstances those engaging the particular services…should have known that they ran the risk of becoming involved in behaviour that fell short of acceptable standards. This seriously dilutes the weight to be attributed to their privacy rights and leads us to conclude that the balance tips in favour of disclosure [para 19 of third ruling]

Accordingly, and, unless there is an appeal (Iwould be surprised if there isn’t) the names of some of the journalists who engaged Whittamore must be disclosed.

Other matters – criticism of ICO

In its preliminary ruling (November 2012) the FTT makes some trenchant criticism of the ICO’s handling of the requester’s first request (even though, as the requester did not pursue it, it was outwith the FTT’s jurisdiction). The refusal on costs grounds had been made, based upon a statement that the information requested had not been recorded in a database. Yet less than two months later the Leveson inquiry began, and, at that inquiry, evidence presented by the ICO effectively, in the FTT’s view, contradicted this statement

 we do not understand how the Appellant could have been given such a misleading response to the First Information Request…as a result of the misleading information given to the Appellant, he was not able to pursue his request…We only became aware of the ICO’s error after the Appellant drew our attention to the evidence presented to the Leveson Inquiry regarding the Spreadsheets. We assume (and certainly hope) that those in the Commissioner’s office handling this appeal had not become aware sooner [para 28 of first ruling]

The ICO clearly did not take well to this criticism, because the second interim ruling records that

the Commissioner has complained about part of the decision which he believes includes unfair criticism of his office and has asked us to correct the impression given [para 3 of second ruling]

but the FTT stood firm, saying

We continue to believe that our criticism was justified. The Appellant was told that he was wrong to assume that any database of information existed that could be interrogated…However, it is now known that the ICO held the Spreadsheets at the time…[and although the information in them] may not have provided the Appellant with precisely the information he requested, but it would have come close. Against that background we believe that the ICO was open to criticism for asserting, without further qualification, that it would be necessary to search through the 17,000 documents in order to respond to the request. [para 6 of second ruling]

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October 3, 2013 · 3:40 pm

Leveson, LJ – defender of the press

Lord Justice Leveson, new President of the Queen’s Bench Division, is not the most popular judge amongst journalists and press barons.

So, in the week before the Privy Council meets to decide which system of press regulation will prevail, his detractors might take a moment to read a recent judgment of his in the Court of Appeal (Jolleys, R. v [2013] EWCA Crim 1135).

The appeal, by the Press Association, represented by the formidable Mike Dodd, was from a decision of a Recorder in Swindon Crown Court, purporting to have been made under section 39 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 preventing media reporting of information relating to the youngest (15-year-old) child of the defendant in the case (despite the fact that some of the information had been in the public domain prior to the making of the order). It was said that the court specifically prevented a reporter present from making representations prior to its making:

the order was put into place until it would be “properly argued” by counsel and “by somebody from the press if need be” [para 4]

This was, as Leveson LJ identified, in breach of rule 16 of the Criminal Procedure Rules, which provides that the court must not impose a rerporting restriction “unless each party and any other person affected…is present; or has had an opportunity (i) to attend, or (ii) to make representations”:

It cannot be suggested that the press were not affected by the order; indeed, it was specifically to restrict what could be reported that the order was made. This failure to allow representations at that stage represented a serious inroad into the respect owed to the press concerned to report criminal proceedings. [para 6]

Section 39 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 provides that

In relation to any proceedings in any court the court may direct that –

a. no newspaper report of the proceedings shall reveal the name, address, or school, or include any particulars calculated to lead to the identification, of any child or young person concerned in the proceedings, either, as being the person by or against, or in respect of whom proceedings are taken, or as being a witness therein;

b. no picture shall be published in any newspaper as being or including a picture of any child or young person so concerned in the proceedings as aforesaid;

except in so far (if at all) as may be permitted by the court.

And the Press Association successfully argued that “concerned in the proceedings” in section 39(a) could not be extended to a child who was merely the son of a defendant, but otherwise unconnected:

In relation to criminal proceedings, this can only include a child or young person who is the victim of an alleged offence, or the defendant or a witness; in civil proceedings, it could also include a child or young person on behalf of whom an action was being brought, for example, in relation to a road traffic accident or medical negligence. [para 12]

and this was supported by the unanimous view of the House of Lords in Re S (A Child) (Identification: Restrictions on Publication) [2005] AC 593  and the Court of Appeal in Re Trinity Mirror and others (A and another intervening) [2008] EWCA Crim 50 in which latter case the court had also rejected the proposition that a court’s inherent jurisdiction justified the making of an order to similar effect on Article 8 grounds

We must however add that we respectfully disagree with the judge’s further conclusion that the proper balance between the rights of these children under Article 8 and the freedom of the media and public under article 10 should be resolved in favour of the interests of the children. In our judgment, it is impossible to over emphasise the importance to be attached to the ability of the media to report criminal trials…If the court were to uphold this ruling so as to protect the rights of the defendant’s children under article 8, it would be countenancing a substantial erosion of the principle of open justice to the overwhelming disadvantage of public confidence in the criminal justice system, the free reporting of criminal trials and the proper identification of those convicted and sentenced in them [paras 32 and 33 of Re Trinity Mirror and others]

Leveson LJ identified other problems with the Recorder’s approach

he [also] approached the issue from the wrong direction. It was for anyone seeking to derogate from open justice to justify that derogation by clear and cogent evidence…The order was made when defence counsel asserted the likelihood of the defendant’s son suffering “the most extraordinary stigma through no fault of his own” which caused the Recorder to ask the reporter what the need for identifying the son was, rather than whether it was necessary to restrict his identification. [para 16]

and the point was made that a section 39 order, although generally obeyed in spirit as well as letter by the press, may not be the most appropriate form of order, applying as it does only to reports in newspapers, and in sound and television broadcasts: social media are not caught by it (“any further developments in this area of the law must be for Parliament”). This purported order had been “loosely” made, and Leveson LJ stressed that

Where such orders are made, they should be restricted to the language of the legislation

Mike Dodd had stated that the problems identified by this case were not uncommon, and the appeal was brought to

highlight what he contends is a continuing problem for journalists and the media, namely the willingness of courts to make unnecessary orders or to assume powers that they do not have. He submits that the courts all too often seem unaware of the guidance that is available and leave it to individual reporters (who will not be as versed in the law as the court, with the assistance of counsel, should be) to attempt to challenge the approach.

This concern was recognised

The requirements of open justice demand that judges are fully mindful of the underlying principles which this judgment has sought to elucidate

and Leveson LJ calls for – in those cases where “there is the slightest doubt, or any novel approach is suggested” regarding the appropriateness of a section 39 order being made – notice to be given in good time but also (without prejudice to the right of the press to advance its own arguments) for counsel “to research and develop the arguments to assist the court in a balanced way”.

Who said Leveson was an enemy of the press?

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