On 27 January, the High Court of Northern Ireland granted British MP George Galloway leave to serve proceedings on Google Inc. out of the jurisdiction. The application was based on a variety of claims including libel, harassment, misuse of private information, and unlawful data processing under the Data Protection Act 1998 (the Act).

The claims relate to three videos uploaded to Google’s YouTube platform by William Frazer. It was claimed that these videos had been uploaded unlawfully. The court stated that there could be no doubt that one of the three videos contained sensitive personal data, but that the question of whether Google was a data processor or data controller would be a “fact specific investigation” which would have to wait until full trial. The view was expressed in the judgment that “[T]he facts as presently put before the court would suggest that Google will not find it easy to defend this claim if it is found to be a data controller.”
Continue Reading Galloway v Frazer & Others – A glimpse to the future of data protection litigation