Personal data, such as your name, likeness, birthday or any other information which can be used to identify you is highly sensitive.
Protecting and bringing actions on the basis of your personal data being harvested, used or misused is a key foundational right to privacy.
Further, the control over autonomy of such data is paramount in data-driven economies.
Actions maybe fall into a variety of categories depending upon context. An non-exhaustive list of English law-oriented rights can be found below:
– Computer Misuse Act 1990, acts which involved the misuse of computers in perpetrating offences
– Data Protection 1998, data protection, misuse and management rights
– Freedom of Information Act 2000, requesting data about you or others, typically referred to as FOI’s
– Malicious Communications, sending false or threatening communications
– Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, data surveillance and harvesting rights
– Fraud Act 2000, offences which involve people masquerading as others including the misuse of their personal data
– Data Protection Act 2018 and General Data Protection Regulation, rights to amend, obtain, delete and manage data. Also contain data breach reporting guidelines.
In seeking to protect your privacy you may look to engage a number of actions simultaneously or concurrently. For example, phone hacking will merit a number of offences for the interception of communications and misuse of personal data.
Many actions which you see featured here will typically involve a data protection oriented offence due to the broad definition and strict protections on the use of personal data. The definition refers to any information which can be used to identify you.
As such data privacy is a key aspect of privacy rights and an ever evolving issue. Some examples include phone hacking, sim jacking, fraud, hate campaigns and data breaches all which engage data protection rights in multi-faceted ways.
The Privacy Perspective 