UK OIC issues updated guidance on Durant

Although the UK Information Commissioner has issued further guidance (pdf) concerning the Durant case, I do not think we should conclude that this is going to be the end of the matter (concerning the interpretation of "personal data"). The European Commission is currently looking at UK's implementation of the Data Protection Directive and Durant is considering of submitting an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

In short, the guidance provides that

• A living individual must be able to be identified from the data in question. In the Durant case, the Court of Appeal did not focus on this element of the definition; and
• The data must 'relate to' the individual identified. It is this issue with which the Court was most concerned, explaining ‘relate to’ as “information that affects [a person’s] privacy, whether in his personal or family life, business or professional capacity”.

Whatever the case may be, the ruling in Durant stands until we hear anything more.