The High Court of England and Wales (Technology and Construction Court) has held that an employer has no proprietary right in emails sent by the company’s CEO that would give the company the right to see the content of the emails. The case is Fairstar v Adkins [2012] EWHC 2952 (TCC). (For various reasons no claim arising from copyright or confidentiality could be made, and the employment contract did not deal with the question.)

The court reviews a great deal of English (and a bit of Canadian) law on the point. It also considers the practical implications of holding that . . . [more]

Back in August I posted a column on Slaw about a Quebec administrative tribunal decision that referred to Facebook and Wikipedia evidence.

The tribunal, the Commission sur les lésions professionnelles (CLP), has returned to the social media admissibility question Campeau et Services alimentaires Delta Dailyfood Canada inc., 2012 QCCLP 7666 (CanLII).

A worker was injured and had to take a lot of time off work. At one point her injuries caused her a case of depression that also kept her off work. To test whether this was serious, the employer created a fictitious account on Facebook, giving the alleged . . . [more]

Two privacy stories raise interesting issues.

1. Journalistic violation of privacy: PIPEDA s. 7(1)(c) gives an exemption from the rules about collection of personal information for journalistic purposes.

Section 32 of the Data Protection Act (UK), by contrast, provides a journalism exception only if, in addition,

(b) the data controller reasonably believes that, having regard in particular to the special importance of the public interest in freedom of expression, publication would be in the public interest, and

(c) the data controller reasonably believes that, in all the circumstances, compliance with [the provision being violated] is incompatible with the

The official report of the October 2012 meeting of the Working Group on Electronic Commerce of UNCITRAL is now online as the first document at this site. (16 pages including formalities)

You will recall that the project is looking for international rules to govern the creation and use of electronic transferable records (ETR), that is, documents that entitle their holder to the delivery of goods or money. The meeting decided that there was enough interest in the topic among businesses and member states to pursue the topic further.

At the outset, the group determined that the elements of negotiability . . . [more]

Since most information these days is generated, communicated and stored electronically, those who need access to a person’s information need access to the person’s information systems. That access may require a password and perhaps a means of decrypting the information. To what extent can the person with a legal right or even duty to access the information compel disclosure of these access methods?

In Ireland, a receiver is investigating the corporate and personal affairs of Sean Quinn in his dealings with the Bank of Ireland. The High Court of Ireland has ordered that several members of the Quinn family turn . . . [more]

Here is a summary article from Outlaw.com, reviewing the law in the UK and elsewhere as to whether Google’s ‘autocomplete’ function for search topics could be defamatory if one or more of the suggested completions for the search term entered had a nasty meaning. A number of countries have held Google liable, including France and Japan. The brief linked to here concludes that there would probably not be liability in the UK.

The Australian courts have followed the French – but not the UK opinion mentioned above – and have found Google liable in defamation for the suggestions that . . . [more]

The Director of Public Prosecutions in the UK may establish a policy about when ‘grossly offensive’ messages on social media would be prosecuted that would consider the reach of the message, i.e. how many people may have been exposed to it. One noted media lawyer has said that’s a bad idea, and the better test is just how offensive the message is, regardless of how many saw it. A discussion of the topic is here.

Under section 127 of the Communications Act it is an offence if someone ‘sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message . . . [more]

A lot of attention has been paid lately to ‘cybersecurity’, much of it aimed at system-wide security or ‘critical infrastructure’ security, but a good deal also to individual questions of authentication, identity management, vulnerability to hacking/phishing/malware and so on. Among the solutions at the individual level, one finds suggestions about using locked-down versions of documents in PDF, various degrees of encryption and so on.

To what extent is the use of these measures problematic for people who rely on technology to make information accessible to them because of physical or other disabilities? The simplest example is the inability of text . . . [more]

At the IT.Can conference earlier this week, I outlined some legal issues with social media.

One of my quick points was that there could be an issue about the entitlement of an ex-employee to a professional LinkedIn account. The case I had in mind in listing the issue was one involving a woman named Linda Eagle, who built up a company with her own name, but when she sold it and the new owners fired her, a dispute arose whether they could keep her LinkedIn profile. Since her assistant had her password, the employers managed to take over the . . . [more]

SlawTips offered tips this week on setting up virtual meetings that focused mainly on how great it is to use Skype, seeing as how it’s free as well as functional.

Question: is it secure enough for lawyers? I know that the Ontario government does not allow me (or others) to download the software (or any other software….) to make it work. But I have heard as well from private sector lawyers that their IT departments don’t think Skype is secure enough to use professionally.

Is that your view, or experience?

What is the issue:

• that Skype wants to set itself

Germany has recently enacted legislation to implement the EU Consumer Rights Directive. Here is an article (from the International Law Office) describing the German legislation. Those familiar with Canadian consumer law will notice that it is considerable more detailed and directory than the Internet Sales Harmonization Template [PDF] that is the law in most provinces.

What do you think? Would our law be improved by provisions like those in the German law?

Your clients who do consumer e-commerce in the EU will run into this kind of law in all member states before long. (It must be in force . . . [more]

If you could detect an attack on your computer system and defend against it, would you want to do it? should you be allowed to do it? What if defending meant harming the computer of the attacker? What if defending meant at least getting information about intermediate computers between the attacker’s and yours?

There are legal and ethical questions here. A review of the ethical ones appears in Stewart Baker’s blog, Skating on Stilts. (He is a former General Counsel of the US National Security Agency, among other high-level achievements.)

Mr Baker argues for private defence as well as . . . [more]