The claimant sought disclosure of the names of officials of the Financial Services Authority who had dealt with his complaint. He now appealed against reversal of an order that they be disclosed.
Held: The appeal failed. The court approved the Information Commissioner’s Office Data Protection Techinical Guidance which said: ‘It is important to remember that it is not always necessary to consider ‘biographical significance’ to determine whether data is personal data. In many cases data may be personal data simply because its content is such that it is ‘obviously about’ an individual. Alternatively, data may be personal data because it is clearly ‘linked to’ an individual because it is about his activities and is processed for the purpose of determining or influencing the way in which that person is treated. You need to consider ‘biographical significance’ only where information is not ‘obviously about’ an individual or clearly ‘linked to’ him.’
Moses, Beatson, Underhill LJJ
[2014] EWCA Civ 92
Bailii
Freedom of Information Act 2000 40(2), Data Protection Act 1998 1
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – The Information Commissioner v The FSA and Edem UTAA 11-Dec-2012
ic_fsa
Information rights – Data protection – whether a person’s name constitutes personal data. As the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (made on 16 April 2012 under reference EA/2011/0132) involved the making of an error in point of law, it is SET . .
Cited – Criminal proceedings against Lindqvist ECJ 6-Nov-2003
Mrs Lindqvist had set up an internet site for her local parish containing information about some of her colleagues in the parish. She gave names, jobs, hobbies and in one case some of the person’s employment and medical details. The Court decided . .
Cited – Durant v Financial Services Authority CA 8-Dec-2003
The appellant had been unsuccessful in litigation against his former bank. The Financial Services Authority had subsequently investigated his complaint against the bank. Using section 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998, he requested disclosure of his . .
Cited – Commission v Bavarian Lager ECJ 15-Oct-2009
ECJ Opinion – Appeal – Access to documents of Community institutions -Document relating to a meeting held in proceedings for failure to fulfil obligations.
‘It should be noted that in paragraph 104 the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Information
Updated: 02 November 2021; Ref: scu.521044
