The Commercial Court has quashed an enforcement notice issued by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) preventing eircom from operating its “three strikes” policy.  This is the latest round of the on-going battle to combat Internet piracy being fought by representatives of the recording industry.

The ODPC issued the enforcement notice in December 2011 as it considered that eircom’s use of IP addresses for that purpose breached data protection and privacy legislation. Following an application by the record labels to have the decision to issue the notice reviewed, the Commercial Court quashed it on 27 June on the grounds that the ODPC had not given reasons in the notice as to why it had been issued. Such reasons that could be ascertained were found by the Court to rely upon a misconstruction of the relevant law. The Court also dismissed the data protection and privacy concerns raised by the ODPC as there was no disclosure of personal data.

To view a more detailed article on this topic, please click here.

Contributed by David Cullen, John Farrell.

Back to Legal News