Summer Round Up: Research and Resources – 3 September 2015

The past month has produced a rich crop of articles and blog posts on media and legal issues which may be of interest to readers of Inforrm.   We will deal with these under five headings: Interception and Surveillance, Lachaux and Serious Harm, Articles on the Right to be Forgotten, Articles on Defamation and Free Speech and Articles on Privacy and Data Protection.

Interception and Surveillance

We begin with an important series of posts about the forthcoming Investigatory Powers Bill by Graham Smith on his Cyberleagle blog.

He points out that the Bill will replace a variety of statutes governing interception, mandatory communications data retention and communications data acquisition by public authorities. In particular it will supersede the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 (DRIPA) and parts of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA). These are the posts

1. Red Lines and no-go zones
2. Legal and policy origins
3. Bulk interception, Part 1 (External communications)
4. Bulk interception, Part 2 (The Section 8(4) certificate)
5. Bulk interception, Part 3 (Selection of intercepted material for examination)
6. Targeted interception (Reasonable suspicion, Thematic warrants, Ban on disclosure)
7. Extraterritoriality, Transparency and Data sharing
8. Communications Data Retention, Part 1 (Content/communications data boundary, Compelled data generation)
9. Communications Data Retention, Part 2 (Third party data collection, Request filter)
10. Communications Data Retention, Part 3 (Retention of weblog data)
11. Communications Data Retention, Part 4 (Mandatory data retention purposes, Prior independent authorisation)
12. Communications Data Acquisition
13. Future-proofing

Cyberleagle also provides links to the key reference documents for the forthcoming Bill:

• Privacy and Security: A modern and transparent legal framework (Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, March 2015)
• A Question of Trust (David Anderson Q.C.’s report on Investigatory Powers, June 2015)
• A Democratic Licence to Operate (RUSI Independent Surveillance Review, July 2015)

Lachaux and “Serious Harm”
The decision in July in the case of Lachaux v Independent Print [2015] EWHC 2242 (QB) was the most important so far on the concept of “serious harm” in section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013.  We had a post on the decision on 4 August 2015 – and a discussion of the procedural guidelines.

Over the past month there have been a number of other discussions of the case on legal blogs and websites – these are the ones which have been drawn to our attention:

• “Lachaux – court considers ‘serious harm’ under the Defamation Act 2013“, Jeffrey Smele, Lexis®PSL IP & IT’s WIPIT blog
• “Court confirms that libel is no longer actionable without proof of damage“, Katie Allard, Dispute Resolution Law Blog, Kingsley Napley
• “Lachaux Part 1: s.1 of the Defamation Act 2013 – ‘serious harm’ must be proved“, Nathan Capone, Scandalous! Field Fisher Defamation Law Blog
• “Lachaux Part 2: the rule in Dingle and the timing of likelihood of serious harm“, Nathan Capone, Scandalous! Field Fisher Defamation Law Blog.
• “Proof of reputational damage necessary for libel actions to succeed, rules High Court“, Out-Law.com
• “The court considers ‘serious harm’ in the context of a defamation dispute“, Rebekah Finch, Briefings, The Lawyer
• “Defamation: Is there serious harm?“, Griffin Law
• “High Court provides guidance on “serious harm” requirement under Defamation Act 2013 and on procedural management of defamation claims“, Neil Blake and Thomas Turner, Herbert Smith Freehills – Litigation Notes
• “Bar Raised for Libel Claimants“, Jo Vale, Hold the Front Page.

Articles on the “Right to be Forgotten”

• Freedom of Expression and ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ Cases in the Netherlands after Google Spain, European Data Protection Law Review 2015-2, p. 113-125, Stefan Kulk and Frederik J. Zuiderveen Borgesius, Utrecht University – Centre for Intellectual Property Law and University of Amsterdam – Institute for Information Law (IViR)
• The Right to Be Forgotten v. Free Speech A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society (Forthcoming), Chicago-Kent College of Law Research Paper, Edward Lee, Illinois Institute of Technology – Chicago-Kent College of Law
• The Latest Developments Regarding the ‘Right to Be Forgotten’, Apostolos Pelekanos, University of Sussex.
• The Shaky Ground of the Right to Be Delisted, Miquel Peguera, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC)

Articles on Defamation and Free Speech

• The Atlantic Divide on Privacy and Speech, Andrew T Kenyon (ed), Comparative Defamation and Privacy Law (Cambridge Press 2015)., Neil M. Richards and Kirsty Hughes
  Washington University in Saint Louis – School of Law and University of Cambridge.
• Public Institutions as Defamation Plaintiffs  Hilary Young, University of New Brunswick – Fredericton – Faculty of Law,
• Corporate Speech and the Rights of Others , 30 Constitutional Commentary 335 (2015), UC Davis Legal Studies Research Paper No. 442, Thomas Wuil Joo, University of California – Davis Law School
• Tort, Speech, and the Dubious Alchemy of State Action 17 University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, No. 4, pp. 1117-1182, 2015, Cristina Carmody Tilley  Loyola University Chicago School of Law, SSRN
• The Categorical Free Speech Doctrine and Contextualization , Emory Law Journal, Vol. 65, No. 2, 2015, Alexander Tsesis Loyola University Chicago School of Law
• The Uneasy and Often Unhelpful Interaction of Tort Law and Constitutional Law in First Amendment Litigation, 98 Marquette Law Review 1003 (2015), Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series No. 2015-33, George C. Christie , Duke University School of Law
• The U.S. First Amendment Versus Freedom of Expression in Other Liberal Democracies and How Each Influenced the Development of International Law on Hate Speech, Ohio Northern Law Review, Vol. XXXVI, Number 3. 2010, Jean-Marie Kamatali. Ohio Northern University
• Free Speech and Democracy in the Video Age, U Denver Legal Studies Research Paper No. 15-42, Justin F. Marceau and Alan K. Chen  University of Denver Sturm College of Law and University of Denver Sturm College of Law

Articles on Privacy and Data Protection

• The Evolving Role of the Individual Under EU Data Protection Law, ICRI Research Paper 23, Brendan van Alsenoy, KU Leuven – Interdisciplinary Centre for Law and ICT (ICRI)
• The Harms of Privacy, Edinburgh School of Law Research Paper No. 2015/27, Eric Descheemaeker, University of Edinburgh – School of Law
• Analyzing Approaches to Internet Jurisdiction Based on Model of Harbors and the High Seas, International Review of Law, Computers & Technology, Vol. 29, No. 2/3, July 2015, p. 266-282, William Guillermo Jiménez and Arno R. Lodder, VU University Amsterdam and Vrije Universiteit – Dep. Transnational Legal Studies – CLI/Center for Law and Interne
• Social Media Definition and the Governance Challenge: An Introduction to the Special Issue, Jonathan A. Obar and Steven S. Wildman University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) and Michigan State University
• The Right of Publicity: How Much of It Can Be Protected by Privacy and the Law of Trademarks? GRUR Int. 2003, 118, Katya Assaf III, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Global Data Privacy Laws 2015: Data Privacy Authorities and Their Organisations , (2015) 134 Privacy Laws & Business International Report, 16-19, Graham Greenleaf, University of New South Wales, Faculty of Law.
• Misuse of Private Information in English Law, Apostolos Pelekanos, University of Sussex