ECHR

By Kristof Van Quathem and Anna Sophia Oberschelp de Meneses

The European Court of Human Rights (“ECHR”) decided on 28 June 2018 that the right to request the erasure of personal data on prior convictions, may be trumped by the right to freedom of expression and information.  The court confirmed prior case law deciding that the public’s legitimate right of access to electronic press archives is protected by the fundamental right of freedom of expression and information and that limitations to this right must be justified by particularly compelling reasons.

Facts of the case

The case concerns two German nationals (ML and WW) who were sentenced to life imprisonment back in 1993 for murdering a popular actor.  ML and WW disputed their conviction and filed several unsuccessful applications for a revision of the procedure and reached out to the press for support.

After being released on probation in 2007 and 2008 respectively, ML and WW initiated three proceedings against different media outlets asking that their names (and individualizing information) be erased from articles published between 1992 and 2000.  ML and WW argued that due to passage of time, their right to privacy outweighed the interest of the public to be informed about the proceedings.  ML and WW also claimed that the articles jeopardized their social reintegration. …
Continue Reading Post GDPR: ECHR Ruling Confirms the Prevalence of Freedom of Expression and Information Over the Right of Erasure

On January 12, 2016, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruled that an employer who had monitored an employee’s private communications during working hours had not breached the employee’s right to privacy (under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights).

This judgment will influence how other European national courts and regulators view similar cases involving employer monitoring of employee private communications. However, the full scope of the judgement remains somewhat unclear; in particular, it remains unclear whether the ECtHR would apply similar logic if the monitored communications had been carried out through a personal account, rather than a professional one.  Employers should also take note that the judgment emphasizes the need for employer monitoring policies to be reasonable and proportionate.  The judgment is available in full here.
Continue Reading European Court of Human Rights Rules That Employers Can Monitor Employee Private Communications

The European Court of Human Rights has today issued its long-awaited ruling in the case of Mosley v. the United Kingdom.

Max Mosley, a UK national and former president of the International Automobile Federation (the governing body of Formula One) lodged an application with the ECHR in 2008 after leading national UK newspapers published details

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