Corporate and commercial round-up June 2020

Data Subject Access Request (DSAR)…When should I respond?

The ICO’s guidance on time limits for responding to a DSAR has been amended. The revised guidance now states:

• the time limit for a response will begin on the day which the DSAR was received; and
• will end on the corresponding date in the next calendar month (irrespective of whether these days are a business day or not).

If the corresponding date falls on a non-business day, the deadline will move to the proceeding business day. Companies need to play close attention to the date (including month) of receipt of the DSAR when calculating their response timeline.

Internal corporate policies should be designed to take this into consideration and emphasis placed upon employees quickly reporting DSARs to the relevant internal department.

Bitcoins…Safe as houses

The Court in AA v Persons Unknown has recently followed the previous analysis of the UK Jurisdictional Taskforce on the classification of crypto-assets as property.

This is an important development for crypto-currency providing it with a legitimacy and tangible classification it needs. This will likely be one of many developments to come in the crypto market place this year, with numerous challenger banks looking to the future potential of crypto-currency.

Whilst there is only approximately 17.1 million Bitcoins currently in circulation, the demand and interest in crypto-currency has only continued to increase. It will be interesting to see where this development leads with numerous industries contemplating the use of new technologies and the advantages of interconnectivity.

Co-operation is key with the ICO

In the last year the ICO have regularly flexed their new enforcement powers provided under the GDPR. A London pharmacy has found themselves the recent recipient of a £275,000 fine and requirement to remediate their data protection practices. The pharmacy failed to adequately secure the special category data they had collected from their customers.

However, it is interesting to note that, the initial penalty notice was reduced from £400,000 to £275,000 due to the pharmacy’s co-operation with the ICO. The clear takeaway being that co-operation goes a long way!

If you would like to discuss these subjects further, please contact us.