On July 28, 2015, the Hamburgische Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit, the Hamburg Data Protection Authority (“DPA”) adopted a decision against Facebook’s policy forbidding users to utilize pseudonyms for their accounts. The German DPA issued an injunction against Facebook Ireland Ltd for infringement of the German Telemedia Act (Telemediengesetz), and the Personal ID Act (Personalausweisgesetz). […]
On June 4, 2015 the Spanish court of Pontavedra (Audiencia Provincial de Pontevedra) held that a father cannot publish his child’s pictures on Facebook without mother’s permission Inside a divorce proceeding a court had granted Father the right to publish his son’s pictures on Facebook. Mother appealed and the Audiencia Provincial de Pontevedra reversed. See […]
On July 1, 2015, the Vienna Regional Court (Landesgericht) rejected a class action (Datenschutz Sammelklage) complaint brought by Max Schrems, an Austrian data protection activist, against Facebook Inc. for lack of jurisdiction The court (Landesgericht) found in first instance that it is not entitled to decide on the class action claiming that Facebook breached EU […]
On June 16, 2015, the Grand Chamber of the European Convention on Human Rights held that the owner of a news portal allowing for users comments can be held liable for defamatory comments therein posted by readers, and this will not be considered as a limitation of the website’s freedom of expression. Delfi AS vs […]
On April 23, 2015, the Grand Chamber of the European Convention on Human Rights held, in addition to one other finding, that the conviction for defamation of a lawyer revealing serious shortcomings in the justice system was a disproportionate interference with his right to freedom of expression. Morice v. France, (Application no. 29369/10). On 19 October […]
Tags: ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE, LAWYERS' DUTY OF CONFIDENTIALITY
On April 23, 2015, the Italian Data Protection Authority (DPA) held that the privacy of the sender of an e-mail containing her personal and health information is violated when the email is forwarded without her consent. In this case, an employer of an IT company sent a promotional email to some franchisors of a real […]
On May 1, 2015, the Australian Privacy Commissioner ruled that phone call metadata is ‘personal information’ and therefore access rights apply. A data subject requested access to all his metadata information that Telstra, Australian telecom company, had stored about him in relation to his mobile phone service, including (but not limited to) cell tower logs, inbound […]
According to the Guardian, on February 18, 2015, the UK government revealed that its intelligence agencies have been unlawfully monitoring attorney-client privileged conversations. The admission follows a decision (IPT/13/77/H) filed on February 6, 2015, by the UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal. The order declared that regulations covering access by British Government to emails and phone records intercepted […]
On February 22, 2015, the Italian court of Termini Imerese issued a notable order addressing the issue of electronic evidence authentication. The topic has raised some concerns in the past as the applicable law on the governmental use of digital resources – Codice dell’Amministrazione Digitale (d.lgs 7 marzo 2005 n. 82) – does not clarify […]
On April 9, 2015, the Vienna Regional Court (Landesgericht) heard the first hearing (vorbereitende Tagsatzung) of the class action claiming that Facebook breached EU privacy laws. The class action claims that Facebook Ireland: has a data use policy that violates EU law; does not provide users with the possibility to express effective consent to several types […]