A CPD Review of the Year

Reflections...

CPD is an essential part of being a chartered professional of any type. So I’m pleased to announce I’ve just submitted my CILIP revalidation statement. For those of you unfamiliar with CILIP processes, when you charter you are expected to maintain your professional development by annual revalidation.

I admit that this is my first formal revalidation. It’s not that I haven’t been keeping up-to-date, just I hadn’t informed CILIP. This year has been different for two reasons; they broadened the types of valid CPD, so time spent on reading, presenting, social media etc all count towards the minimum 20 hours; and at the end of last year they launched a virtual learning environment to help with the administrative process.

What is my dissertation about?

The Elector of Saxony’s wire drawing bench (1565) is an extremely complicated piece of art and technology which remains relatively unknown outside France and Germany. It deserves to be more widely known not only amongst the general public, but also art and cultural historians too, due to its unique straddling of the Renaissance art and scientific world.

Wearable Technology: The Impact on Society and Privacy

What do I know about wearable tech? What do I know about my own privacy settings on the tech that I carry about with me? How much of my personal data am I unwittingly giving away to large corporations through apps, GPS, internet searches? With these questions in mind I attended the panel discussion organised by the Halsbury Law Exchange. I was there in a couple of capacities; partly as representative of my firm and partly as an interested consumer.

Data Protection: A Litigation View

Data protection is normally presented from a risk/compliance point of view and, indeed, it is an essential part of a firm's responsibility to their clients. Information professionals should be involved with these compliance duties and be familiar with processes and principles. However, what about the litigation point of view? Yesterday David Glen of 1 Brick Court took us though some recent legal developments but any errors in law or omissions in sense are all mine!

Background
 

The Data Protection Act 1998 was formed out of the EU Data Protection Directive (also known as Directive 95/46/EC). For the first decade of its existence, it caused a stir as a new area of law but then, litigation-wise, essentially discarded. Data protection has been seen as a secondary cause, offering a peripheral remedy after remedies that libel and misuse of information offer.

David believed that this is shifting and we will be seeing a change in the future. He suggested that people are far more aware of their personal data protection rights because of increased discussion in the press. The increased willingness of the judiciary to apply the data protection thresholds is also key; Tugendhat J. has turned it into a radical issue. The final case (below) that he discussed applies the DPA's already broad issue of fairness in an even wider way.