Burke v Eir judgment

This is a judgment by Mr Justice Max Barrett in a pre-trial application in which Eir sought to dismiss a claim of a breach of the Data Protection Acts (1988 & 2003) brought by a Mr Michael Burke.
There are several points of interest in this judgment:
 
  • The time elapsed between Mr Burke making a complaint to the Data Protection Commission and a decision issuing from the DPC in relation to Eir’s failure to adequately handle his Subject Access Request. This appears to be in excess of 18 months, from March 2017 until December 2018, which is an extremely long time for a decision on a basic matter such as a Subject Access Request.
  • The data controller attempted to argue that since a decision had been issued by the DPC then the matter had been fully litigated and could not be taken any further. This was not accepted.
  •  The data controller argued that it could not allow the data subject exercise his right to erasure of inaccurate data. This seems to be in breach of the principle of accuracy.
Topics

Data Protection Fundamentals (basics, definitions and more …)
Your Rights (all your data protection rights: access, information, rectification and more …)
In More Detail (explorations and explanations of data protection concepts …)
Keeping Track (tracking Subject Access Requests and complaints to Supervisory Authorities …)