In the September Gazette, Deirdre Kilroy considers whether strengthened data protection law will result in a litigation deluge.
A data protection overhaul
The General Data Protection Regulation (the GDPR) came into force on 25 May 2018, just 24 hours after the Data Protection Act 2018, resulting in the largest overhaul of Irish data privacy laws in over 20 years. The question at the forefront of many practitioners’ minds is whether there will be a deluge of complaints by claimants who allege their data protection rights have been infringed, and consequent litigation.
It has already been reported that there has been a significant number of data-breach notifications and complaints to the Data Protection Commission in Ireland since 25 May. While the field is highly unlikely to be as ubiquitous as personal injuries litigation, writes Helen Kilroy, practitioners will see activity in data protection litigation increasing significantly.
Handling claims
Potential civil claims are not confined to classic data infringement disputes, but will also crop up as an additional heads of claim in all kinds of civil disputes, including employment disputes, contractual disputes, personal injuries, financial services claims, and breach of confidence actions.
Deirdre Kilroy is a partner in the technology and innovation group in Matheson. Writing in the Gazette, she notes that data subjects can authorise a not-for-profit organisation to lodge data protection complaints on their behalf, and to act on their behalf in breaches of the relevant law. Collective action mechanisms will assist data subjects to instigate litigation and to access legal assistance and knowledge in a novel way in Ireland. In the full article, Kilroy explores the practical application of the law, and how civil claims made pursuant to it are likely to be processed.
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