Not at all. I'm grateful.

No. I think if one works one's way through the document which I've provided, the written document, and particularly all of the links and the end notes, that's more than ample for the purposes of this Inquiry and indeed what I would wish to say in relation ...

Correct.

If one went down the judicial route. I've also made the suggestion that a disgruntled individual should have the option of simply going to the Information Commissioner and saying, "Here's what's happened, I want an award, you give me an award", in a process which doesn't ...

What the court would do is look at the tariff which has been set by the Commissioner, see where the events that are described and shown to have occurred fall within that tariff, and make an award accordingly.

No, not intended to be punitive, although I suspect individuals get solace from the fact that the wrongdoer has been punished.

I agree. What I've suggested is the things that, let us say the Information Commissioner, he being charged with coming up with this assessment, should look to are the extent of deviation from the data protection principles, the period of time over which there has been that deviation, the ...

Mm-hm.

It will depend entirely on the extent of the breach of the principles themselves. What I had in mind -- one can anticipate, for example, that if something has a very wide dissemination of very sensitive personal information -- let's say a person's medical reports were disseminated in a national ...

Yes. I mean, my object wasn't to go further than is required of the directive but really to express what the directive requires.

Correct.

Although, that said, paragraph (c) will still operate -- if, for example, a journalist embarks upon an investigation which is thought to be of massive importance but, a little way down the track, realises that all of these threads aren't going to justify the publication of anything, nevertheless, the fact ...

Correct.

Correct.

Correct. That's exactly what I've sought -- I've striven, with the suggested wording of (a), (b) and (c), is to recognise that the process of getting to the end of an investigative journalistic story may involve picking up material which ought not form part of the publication itself ...

(c) is concerned with Article 8, so it's looking at the individual. So (b) and (c) set up the contest which articles 10 and 8 respectively contain. It's concerned with the likely interference with the privacy of the data subject, and it looks to how that occurs from ...

The object of paragraph (b), as I've expressed it, is to bring in essentially the article 10 right of the press, the freedom of expression, recognising the public Watchdog function which they carry out, and yes, it keeps it as a reasonable belief because necessarily, to be effective, it ...

If recognises that particularly for investigative journalism, in which there may be a long trail leading up to the publication itself -- and some of those sub-trails may turn out to the be fruitless in themselves but are nevertheless necessary in order to explore all the avenues to produce the article ...

Correct.

It wouldn't impair that at all, and there certainly wouldn't be anything behind my submission that that would be impaired. Indeed, freed of all of the other stuff, what would come out is that it is that which is being protected and having paramountcy over personal privacy in ...

Well, my view is that were these amendments to be effected -- or amendments along these lines to be effected -- then what would happen is the DPA would be restored to its right position, namely as the primary mechanism of remedying press mishandling of personal information. It would provide proper and ...

The first is a redrafting of Section 32 to address what I consider to be the shortcomings in the provision as it is currently worded and also as magnified through judge-made authority. In so doing, what I've suggested is to actually articulate the contest between the Article 8 rights ...

That is right. The point I make has two sides to it. There's the side of the individual, who knows where he or she stands and has certain rights which are protected. But it also assists the bodies that are processing the data themselves to know what it is ...

We would hope so.

I agree.

Correct.

The regulation will be directly applicable in Member States, replacing the directive, and therefore the Data Protection Act 1998. However, the proposed regulation -- and that's all it is at the moment -- itself leaves it to individual Member States to provide for exemptions or derogations from the general principles which ...

My experience is that whenever the Data Protection Act is raised in court, it doesn't get a very favourable reception because it is daunting to most. The concepts are unfamiliar and the way in which the Act is worded and structured doesn't help to that level of understanding ...

Correct. Just the opposite, I would suggest, from what it should have been.

The appetite was limited to begin with. It's diminished to the point of nonexistence, almost, I would have said, post Campbell.

The phrase "with a view to" is problematic for that very reason.

In our trade.

It certainly could be argued and I'd be prepared to argue it. The contrary would be that there's a difference between the phrase "with a view to" and "for the purpose of". "For the purpose of" has that definiteness that you are referring to. "With a view to ...

Well, in Campbell you've had the stretching of the end of the process. The part of the process you're now considering is at the beginning, and arguably if it's stretched at the end of the process, it should equally be stretched at the beginning of the process ...

I would agree with that.

Correct.

Yes, and the view taken by Mr Justice Morland was that the Section 32 exemption -- we'll remember we were looking at the phrase in paragraph A -- only applied to processing with a view to publication, so up to that moment, and not to the processing involved in the publication ...

Campbell was the model who most people know. She was photographed leaving a -- her therapy for drug addiction and the photographs were published in the newspaper. She brought a claim against the newspaper for that. She brought the claim both as a breach of confidence and also under the Data ...

Agreed.

Yes, and the passages which I referred to in the end note from the Hansard, which were included as attachments, show that the concerns which were articulated by Lord Lester were very prescient indeed. He anticipated many of the difficulties which have been shown to have resulted from Section 32.

That is my view and I would also go further in saying that the word "necessary" implies that something must be shown that this is needed in order for the reconciliation, and that is difficult to see in the Section 32 provision, which is supposed to give effect to Article ...

Yes. I mean, one could argue the phrase "journalistic purposes" carries on to the publication itself. My point that I make in relation to Article 9 and its translation into Section 32 is that Article 9 recognises the contest between the right to privacy and freedom of expression, but Section ...

Yes, and that's why the Campbell decision, which said that "with a view to publication" didn't stop at the moment of publication but carried on beyond that, effectively made the thing run forever and give the press a complete protection under Section 32, not just up to the ...

It's -- well, if a claim is being made for a breach of the section 4(4) statutory duty, the way this would come forward, assuming one had cleared the Commissioner's involvement, would be that would be a matter for the court. The question is: is the processing undertaken ...

Well, you'll probably be met with the argument that this is within section 45 territory, namely relating to special purposes, and so the whole thing goes off for the special assessment procedure, which we've spoken to ten minutes ago, and by the time you get to the end ...

Correct.

And in any event, it may be that when you drill down to that source itself, it is found to be not a good source, but nevertheless the belief which is held by the journalist themselves, who has not had the opportunity of drilling down, is that: "I think it ...

Correct.

Colour which is introduced, but nevertheless it's not difficult, I would have said, for most journalists -- and certainly that's what the authorities have indicated, and one which seems to have been missed for a point, that it is very much for the press to make their own judgment ...

"Reasonably believes".