The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has published detailed guidance for organisations on how to deal with rights of access to personal data (subject access rights) under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The publication of new guidance is welcome news for employers, who are likely at some point to receive a SAR from an existing or former employee. With much employment data appearing in documents which are unstructured and which contain data on more than one individual (for example, many emails), dealing with an SAR in an employment context is particularly challenging.
The guidance addresses issues such as:
The circumstances in which a SAR may be deemed complex and enable the response period of up to a month from receipt of an SAR to be paused while the employer waits for the individual to clarify their request.
Determining when a SAR is manifestly excessive. The guidance confirms that this assessment would require the employer to consider whether the SAR is clearly or obviously unreasonable. The ICO recommends taking all the circumstances of the SAR into account and using them to determine whether the response required is proportionate when balanced with the burden of dealing with the SAR.
For more information please contact a member of our Employment Law Team.
The Government has published a consultation paper proposing the reform of the Right to Contest which enables the public to request that publicly owned land is sold where it is unused or underused.
Fishbourne Developments Ltd v Stephens [2020] EWCA Civ 1704
In this case the appellants were a development company who were granted an option to purchase a farm. The owner of the farm died in 2014 and her interest passed to her daughter the respondent.
The Court of Appeal has recently confirmed that cost capping orders for Aarhus Convention claims, which includes planning and other environmental judicial reviews, are inclusive of VAT.
The available defences to local authority prosecutions for the non-compliance of planning enforcement notices are limited. The recent case of Zafar v Stoke-On-Trent City Council [2020] highlights such limitations and the importance of exercising your appeal rights.
