“Firstly, there are potential structural differences between the sectors which will require different consideration. … Secondly, it will be necessary to undertake a full assessment Page 3 of the likely economic and other impacts before implementing any reform.”
“Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully and, in particular, shall not be processed unless - (a) at least one of the conditions in Schedule 2 is met, and (b) in the case of sensitive personal data, at least one of the conditions in Schedule 3 is also met.”
“Whichever approach is adopted, many class members are likely to fail to take any positive action for a range of reasons that have nothing at all to do with an assessment of whether or not it is in their interests to participate in the proceedings. Some class members will not receive the relevant notice. Others will not understand the notice, or will have difficulty understanding what action they are required to take and completing any relevant form, or will be unsure or hesitant about what to do and will do nothing. Even where a class member considers that it is in their interests to participate in the proceedings, the significance of inertia in human affairs should not be underestimated.”
“The tribunal may make an award of damages in collective proceedings without undertaking an assessment of the amount of damages recoverable in respect of the claim of each represented person.”
“Because it would be impracticable to make them all parties by name, and there would be continual abatements by death and otherwise, and no coming at justice, if all were to be made parties.”
“The general rule, which requires the plaintiff to bring before the court all the parties interested in the subject in question, admits of exceptions. The liberality of this court has long held that there is of necessity an exception to the general rule, when a failure of justice would ensue from its enforcement.”
“Here is a current of authority, adopting more or less a general principle of exception, by which the rule, that all persons interested must be parties, yields when justice requires it, in the instance either of plaintiffs or defendants. … It is quite clear that the present suit has sufficient parties, and that the defendants may be considered as representing the company.”
“Where there are numerous parties having the same interest in one action, one or more of such parties may sue or be sued, or may be authorised by the court to defend in such action, on behalf or for the benefit of all parties so interested.”
“… in all other respects I think the rule as to representative suits remains very much as it was a hundred years ago. From the time it was first established it has been recognised as a simple rule resting merely upon convenience. It is impossible, I think, to read such judgments as those delivered by Lord Eldon in Adair v New River Co, in 1805, and in Cockburn v Thompson, in 1809, without seeing that Lord Eldon took as broad and liberal a view on this subject as anybody could desire. ‘The strict rule’, he said, ‘was that all persons materially interested in the subject of the suit, however numerous, ought to be parties … but that being a general rule established for the convenient administration of justice must not be adhered to in cases to which consistently with practical convenience it is incapable of application’. ‘It was better’, he added, ‘to go as far as possible towards justice than to deny it altogether’. He laid out of consideration the case of persons suing on behalf of themselves and all others, ‘for in a sense’, he said, ‘they are before the Court’. As regards defendants, if you cannot make everybody interested a party, you must bring so many that it can be said they will fairly and honestly try the right. I do not think, my Lords, that we have advanced much beyond that in the last hundred years …”
“The principle on which the rule is based forbids its restriction to cases for which an exact precedent can be found in the reports. The principle is as applicable to new cases as to old, and ought to be applied to the exigencies of modern life as occasion requires. The rule itself has been embodied and made applicable to the various Divisions of the High Court by the Judicature Act, 1873, sections 16 and 23- 25, and Order XVI, rule 9; and the unfortunate observations made on that rule in Temperton v Russell have been happily corrected in this House in the Duke of Bedford v Ellis and in the course of the argument in the present case.”
“no representative action can lie where the sole relief sought is damages, because they have to be proved separately in the case of each plaintiff, and therefore the possibility of representation ceases.”
“classes of shareholders in a railway company who have different rights inter se, but they may all have a common enemy in the shape of a fraudulent director, and they may all join, of course, in one common suit against that director, although after the common right is established they may have a considerable litigation among themselves as to who are the persons entitled to the gains obtained through that suit.”
“Given a common interest and a common grievance, a representative suit was in order if the relief sought was in its nature beneficial to all whom the plaintiff proposed to represent.”
“… some affected individuals were ‘super users’ - heavy internet users. They will have been ‘victims’ of multiple breaches, with considerable amounts of [browser generated information] taken and used throughout the Relevant Period. Others will have engaged in very little internet activity. Different individuals will have had different kinds of information taken and used. No fewer than 17 categories of personal data are identified in the claim documents. The specified categories of data vary in their sensitivity, some of them being ‘sensitive personal data’ within the meaning of the section 2 of the DPA (such as sexuality, or ethnicity). … But it is not credible that all the specified categories of data were obtained by Google from each represented claimant. … The results of the acquisition and use will also have varied according to the individual, and their attitudes towards the acquisition, disclosure and use of the information in question.”
“(a) The lack of consent or knowledge of the Representative Claimant and each member of the Claimant Class to the defendant’s collection and use of their personal data. (b) The fact that such collection and use was contrary to the defendant’s public statements. (c) The fact that such collection and use was greatly to the commercial benefit of the defendant. (d) The fact that the defendant knew or ought to have known of the operation of the Safari Workaround from a very early stage during the Relevant Period. …”
“1. Member states shall provide that any person who has suffered damage as a result of an unlawful processing operation or of any act incompatible with the national provisions adopted pursuant to this Directive is entitled to receive compensation from the controller for the damage suffered. 2. The controller may be exempted from this liability, in whole or in part, if he proves that he is not responsible for the event giving rise to the damage.”
“What human rights law has done is to identify private information as something worth protecting as an aspect of human autonomy and dignity.”
“… the question whether there is a reasonable expectation of privacy is a broad one, which takes account of all the circumstances of the case. They include the attributes of the claimant, the nature of the activity in which the claimant was engaged, the place at which it was happening, the nature and purpose of the intrusion, the absence of consent and whether it was known or could be inferred, the effect on the claimant and the circumstances in which and the purposes for which the information came into the hands of the publisher.”
“While the law is used to awarding damages for injured feelings, there is no reason in principle … why it should not also make an award to reflect infringements of the right itself, if the situation warrants it.”
“I shall therefore approach the consideration of quantum in this case on the footing that compensation can be given for things other than distress, and in particular can be given for the commission of the wrong itself so far as that commission impacts on the values protected by the right.”
“the judge was correct to conclude that the power of the court to grant general damages was not limited to distress and could be exercised to compensate the claimants also for the misuse of their private information. The essential principle is that, by misusing their private information, MGN deprived the claimants of their right to control the use of private information.”
“Privacy is a fundamental right. The reasons for having the right are no doubt manifold. Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead put it very succinctly in Campbell v MGN Ltd[2004] 2 AC 457 , para 12: ‘[Privacy] lies at the heart of liberty in a modern state. A proper degree of privacy is essential for the wellbeing and development of an individual.’”
“Whereas the object of the national laws on the processing of personal data is to protect fundamental rights and freedoms, notably the right to privacy, which is recognized both inarticle 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and in the general principles of [EU] law; whereas, for that reason, the approximation of those laws must not result in any lessening of the protection they afford but must, on the contrary, seek to ensure a high level of protection in the [EU];”
“Object of the Directive In accordance with this Directive, member states shall protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons, and in particular their right to privacy with respect to the processing of personal data.”
“If a court is satisfied on the application of a data subject - (a) that he has suffered damage by reason of any contravention by a data controller of any of the requirements of this Act in respect of any personal data, in circumstances entitling him to compensation under section 13, and (b) that there is a substantial risk of further contravention in respect of those data in such circumstances, the court may order the rectification, blocking, erasure or destruction of any of those data.”
“Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data.”
“The rationale of such awards is that the person who makes wrongful use of property, where its use is commercially valuable, prevents the owner from exercising a valuable right to control its use, and should therefore compensate him for the loss of the value of the exercise of that right. He takes something for nothing, for which the owner was entitled to require payment.”
“The valuation construct is that the parties must be treated as having negotiated for a licence which covered the acts of trespass that actually occurred. The defendant is not required to pay damages for anything else.”