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Private eye

29 March 2012 / Tom Morrison
Issue: 7507 / Categories: Features , Data protection
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Tom Morrison returns with his quarterly review of the world of information law

The previous edition of this column highlighted the fact that, while there had been a great deal of enforcement activity in the preceding quarter, the information commissioner’s office (ICO) had seemed to have eased off using its fining powers following a pattern of fairly consistent use over the previous year (161 NLJ 7490, p 1586). The focus had very much switched to highlighting what had gone wrong and securing compliance going forward through a series of undertakings to do better. Well things have moved on since then. 


So what has been happening?

Councils in particular have been in the firing line; here are a few examples: 
  • Worcestershire County Council and North Somerset County Council were fined £80,000 and £60,000 respectively at the end of November 2011. In the Worcestershire case a member of staff e-mailed highly sensitive personal data about a large number of vulnerable people to 23 unintended recipients. The error was caused by the sender clicking on the wrong
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MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
In this week's NLJ, Steven Ball of Red Lion Chambers unpacks how advances in forensic science finally unmasked Ryland Headley, jailed in 2025 for the 1967 rape and murder of 75-year-old Louisa Dunne. Preserved swabs and palm prints lay dormant for decades until DNA-17 profiling produced a billion-to-one match
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
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