Absolvitor: Scots Law Online

Kevin Dunion, Scottish Information Commissioner, has welcomed the House of Lords ruling on the appeal by the Common Services Agency against a Court of Session judgement in favour of his decision in the case of Michael Collie and the CSA.

The decision concerned a request in 2005 by a Green Party researcher for data showing the incidence of childhood leukaemia at ward level in Dumfries and Galloway. The Commissioner ordered release of this statistical data in “Barnardised” form: a method for disguising statistical information to prevent identification. The Court of Session upheld the Commissioner’s decision on appeal, after which the CSA took their case to the House of Lords.

The Appellate Committee (Lord Hoffmann, Lord Hope of Craighead, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, Baroness Hale of Richmond and Lord Mance ) decided to allow the appeal, and have remitted the decision back to the Commissioner, to establish whether or not the statistical information can be released without the risk of identifying individuals.

Mr. Dunion commented: “I am pleased that the Lords have upheld my view that the Common Services Agency does hold the information in dispute and I am entitled to require authorities to anonymise personal data so that it can be released. Clearly, developments since the issue of the original decision mean that I need to address again what statistical information can be disclosed in this case whilst protecting the privacy of individual patients. I am looking forward to working with the Common Services Agency to establish what information can be released in light of the House of Lords decision.”

According to Wikipedia, Barnardisation is a method of disclosure control for tables of counts that involves randomly adding or subtracting 1 from some cells in the table. It is named after Professor George Alfred Barnard (1915-2002), a professor of mathematics at the University of Essex.

• Scottish Information Commissioner
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  Common Services Agency v. Scottish Information Commissioner [2008] UKHL 47

Yes, I’m on my holidays in Perthshire, so the blog will be updated less frequently for a little while. Of course, the Absolvitor Scots Law Firms Gazetteer has an impressive list of Law Firms in Perth & Kinross for you to browse in or to get some local colour.

In the meantime, many congratulations to my esteemed colleagues, Chala Ferguson and Maria Sharkey of the Govan Law Centre who were both nominated in the category of Trainee Solicitor of the Year in the Law Awards of Scotland 2008. Both thoroughly deserving of the prize, it should pose the judging panel a bit of a headache to separate them.

The High Court has ruled that Pringles are not potato crisps. The delicious and addictive snacks are only 42 per cent potato and the judge decided that they were not therefore “wholly, or substantially wholly, made from the potato.”

The importance of this is that, as a result, Pringles are zero-rated for Value Added Tax – and thus cheaper. Hurrah!

NB: the Pringle is in the shape of a hyperbolic paraboloid. Now you know.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation are reporting that a court ruling will expose the viewing habits of YouTube users. As part of the ongoing Viacom v. Google litigation, the federal court for the Southern District of New York has ordered that Google hand over “all data from the Logging database concerning each time a YouTube video has been viewed on the YouTube website or through embedding on a third-party website.”

The Video Privacy Protection Act in the USA is supposed to put a stop to this sort of behaviour, but the Court was apparently persuaded that releasing this information, including IP addresses and log-in ID names, was not sufficient to identify individuals. This is demonstrably untrue.

The Foundation concludes: “The Court’s erroneous ruling is a set-back to privacy rights, and will allow Viacom to see what you are watching on YouTube. We urge Viacom to back off this overbroad request and Google to take all steps necessary to challenge this order and protect the rights of its users.”

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has recently granted a licence to the Clinical Sciences Research Institute, University of Warwick, which permits the creation of human-pig hybrid embryos for research purposes.

This licence is purportedly enacted under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. The Christian Legal Centre, together with Comment on Reproductive Ethics, has already filed legal papers for a Judicial Review over the decisions earlier this year by the HFEA to grant licences to Newcastle University and Kings College London for their research into degenerative diseases using animal-human hybrids.

While Parliament has recently passed the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that allows for the granting of licences for human-pig hybrid embryo research, the 1990 Act did not.

Professor Justin St. John, the leading researcher on this project at the University of Warwick stated “This new licence allows us to attempt to make human pig clones to produce embryonic stem cells.”

The third reading of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill is expected to take place in Parliament as early as next week.

Christian Concern for our Nation (CCFON) have produced an Information and Action Pack on this issue.

Phase One of the ICL Inquiry began today at the Community Central Hall, Maryhill.

On 11 May 2004 there was an explosion at a plastics factory operated by ICL Plastics Ltd and ICL Tech Ltd at Grovepark Mills in Maryhill, Glasgow. As a result 9 people died and 33 were injured.

The ICL Inquiry is a joint public inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005 and is to enquire into the circumstances leading up to the incident and consider the safety and related issues.

The chair is Lord Gill. Counsel to the Inquiry are Roy Martin QC and Kenny McBrearty.

Gamezine is reporting that Topware Interactive have won a court case against four people for illegal file-sharing.

The downloaders were fined 750 pounds each, with a further 2,000 pounds in costs, for uploading Dream Pinball 3D to torrent sites.

As Topware’s solicitors have obtained disclosure orders for a further 1,000 names from internet service providers, more litigation is expected.

David Gore, one of Topware’s solicitors, said “Copyright owners spend millions of pounds developing copyright works for sale to the public for their enjoyment and yet many think it is acceptable to obtain the work illegally and for free by procuring a copy on a peer-to-peer network.”