“It is a strange feature of the DPA subject access regime that, despite having extremely far reaching legal effects, to date it only rarely been the subject of judicial analysis. This is in no small part because the costs of bringing disputes over the application of the legislation before the courts are generally prohibitive. As readers of this blog will know, there have been some fairly recent county court judgments which have considered the application of the regime (see in particular the posts on the judgments in Elliott and Abadir here and here). However, jurisprudence emanating from the High Court has been decidedly thin on the ground. Today however the High Court has handed down an important judgment on the application of the regime: In the Matter of the Southern Pacific Personal Loans Limited [2013] EWHC 2485 (Admin). Readers will want to note in particular that part of the judgment where the court considered the relevance of the applicant’s purpose or motive in making a subject access request (SAR) – as discussed below.”
Panopticon, 8th August 2013
Source: www.panopticonblog.com
