Articles by ‘John North’

The EU and the USA signed an agreement which came into effect in 2000. The agreement was called the Safe Harbour Agreement (‘the Agreement’). The purpose of the Agreement was to streamline the way in which American firms obtained data from Europe cost-effectively without contravening the rule that personal data must not be transferred to parts of the world where there were not adequate privacy protections in place. The Agreement allowed around 5,000 American companies to bypass European privacy laws.

In Barton v Royal Borough of Greenwich IDS 1026 page 6, the EAT has upheld an Employment Tribunal decision that the Employer’s dismissal of an employee who contacted the Information Commissioner, in breach of the employer’s express instruction not to do so without approval, was fairly dismissed. The Tribunal, endorsed by the EAT, had established that the communication to the Information Commissioner was not a qualifying disclosure and the employee was not able to rely upon an “associative connection” with an earlier disclosure (in which he alleged a breach of the Data Protection Act) to convert his later disclosure into a qualifying disclosure. The EAT also upheld the Tribunal’s decision that the dismissal was within the range of reasonable responses open to the employer: the employee had previously contacted the Commissioner with allegations of breaches of Data Protection without bothering to check their accuracy or inform his employer first. In these circumstances, the Tribunal considered that it was legitimate of the employer to require the employee to tell it first before contacting the Commissioner again.

In 1995 the European Union adopted the European Data Protection Directive (“the Directive”) to regulate the processing of personal data. The objective of the Directive is:

Businesses are being invited to have their say about whether they feel that the UK’s anti-bribery legislation is too restrictive.

Spotify, the commercial music streaming service, recently updated its privacy policy to include details of what it will do and what it won’t do with consumers’ data. The updated policy made references to the collection of consumers’ photos, phone contacts and media files, which caused a backlash for those who felt that it was an invasion of privacy and was unnecessary for the purposes of streaming music.

The Law Commission recently published Technical Issues in Charity Law – a formidable wedge of paper that could see several significant changes to current laws.

London has become the de-facto leader in the European tech industry, new research suggests. Data compiled by EY found that 1,000 “international tech investment projects” chose to base themselves in the city between 2005…

London-based solicitors Royds have appointed a new partner to its Corporate and Commercial department, as they continue to strengthen their commercial services in the City.

Royds solicitor Thomas Bjorn has written an article for a leading publication about an important data protection issue facing many in the life sciences industry.

The private use exception which most of us thought legitimate and long overdue to bring the legislation up to date with modern reality may not survive following a recent High Court judgement.

A major life sciences event, co-sponsored by Royds, took place in London last month.

From Brewer’s Yeast to Personalised Medicine was organised by the Danish-UK Chamber of Commerce, in conjunction with companies such as Royds – whose corporate commercial team work closely with clients in the sector.

The Prime Minister and Chancellor recently welcomed the launch of Tech Nation, the first comprehensive analysis of the UK’s digital technology ‘clusters’.