Denial of Access thread. Can GDPR prevent me sharing an email ?

[Binnacle]

I have had an email from the landlord. I do not want to share the details yet as it seems there are some legal rumblings in the background.

However, the last sentence of his letter says

" May we remind you that under GDPR this is a personal letter in reply to your emails and should not be disseminated in any form."

Really and truly ?

 

[bedouin]

I have had an email from the landlord. I do not want to share the details yet as it seems there are some legal rumblings in the background.

However, the last sentence of his letter says

" May we remind you that under GDPR this is a personal letter in reply to your emails and should not be disseminated in any form."

Really and truly ?

No - GDPR does not apply to correspondence between individuals in a private capacity. It might be different if you were a "mooring holders organisation".

 

[Skeffles]

No. That is bullshit. Once they've sent it to you it is yours to do with as you please, except in very strict and specialised technical circumstances (stuff like Official Secrets, or confidential information between members of the same commercial or professional organisations, so I hardly see how that applies here). There may be stuff they don't want you to pass around, or some stuff which might be felt to be morally confidential, but that is not protected information. You'll have to let your own best judgement apply on what is wise to share or not in those cases, but legally you are in the clear.

 

[chriss999]

If it is a lawyer’s letter it may say something about confidentiality and privilege, & personally I wouldn’t share that except with parties who are involved.
In fact i’d never share an entire letter on the internet, wherever it came from because of the risk of escalation and bad feeling.
I only share where I can control onward distribution, or can trust the recipients.

 

[RichardS]

If it is a lawyer’s letter it may say something about confidentiality and privilege, & personally I wouldn’t share that except with parties who are involved.
In fact i’d never share an entire letter on the internet, wherever it came from because of the risk of escalation and bad feeling.
I only share where I can control onward distribution, or can trust the recipients.

Although a lawyers letter might say "without prejudice" or similar, that does not impinge on your right to share it with whomsoever you like. However, there might be a downside to doing so in terms of you winning a case but that's a separate matter. Lawyer / client privilege applies to the lawyer rather than the client.

Richard

 

[JumbleDuck]

I have had an email from the landlord. I do not want to share the details yet as it seems there are some legal rumblings in the background.

However, the last sentence of his letter says

" May we remind you that under GDPR this is a personal letter in reply to your emails and should not be disseminated in any form."

Really and truly ?

I'm pretty sure that the GDPR bit is cobblers - like almost everything which mentions GDPR - but the writer of a letter does retain copyright in the usual way and has explicitly said it is not to be reproduced, so the ground may be a little shaky ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3204121.stm

 

[Uricanejack]

My boss gets really upset when I send an email without the BS section about privacy and not to be reproduced.
So it’s probably not the done thing for a Gentleman to reproduce the landlords private letter. Or email.

Until after his death. Then sell it on eBay if he is famous

German Democratic People’s Republic. Thought it didn’t exist anymore

 

[steve yates]

I have had an email from the landlord. I do not want to share the details yet as it seems there are some legal rumblings in the background.

However, the last sentence of his letter says

" May we remind you that under GDPR this is a personal letter in reply to your emails and should not be disseminated in any form."

Really and truly ?

Absolutely not.

 

[steve yates]

I'm pretty sure that the GDPR bit is cobblers - like almost everything which mentions GDPR - but the writer of a letter does retain copyright in the usual way and has explicitly said it is not to be reproduced, so the ground may be a little shaky ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3204121.stm

Copyright is for works created, I seriously doubt if the act can be applied to everyday correspondence.

GDPR is designed to ensure clarity and transparency to the public by business and organisations about data handling. How they collect it, how they store it and how they use it. And to give the individual the option to not be targeted and to have their details removed. It has nothing whatsoever to do with email conversations between individuals. There is no possible sanction for a member of the public in gdpr, only for organisations.

 

[steve yates]

Gdpr was met with a lot of panic and ire among small businesses, but like most European rules, it's based on common sense and the greater good. I did quite a bit of research on it and it's ramifications, although I did take a rather tongue in cheek approach to it's implementation in my business, this is my privacy policy on my website

In actual fact it's a godsend for getting rid of cold callers, now as soon as I ask to be removed from their database, they agree and hang up. I already get far less calls than I used to.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Copyright is for works created, I seriously doubt if the act can be applied to everyday correspondence.

 

[macd]

Copyright is for works created, I seriously doubt if the act can be applied to everyday correspondence.

There are other sources than the one linked by Jumble to the effect that this may be wrong, although some degree of originality may be required. (Is citing GDPR in that way a creative act? ) If it is, it's particularly wrong where the author has expressly indicated he/she does not want the content of the letter circulated, even if the ground for doing so is bollox. It makes no difference whether the letter is physical or electronic, although in the former case the intended recipient owns the physical thing. There is no requirement in UK law for copyright to be overtly asserted.

This report perhaps has particular relevance: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/15/email_copyright_infringement/

All in all, it looks an effective way of enriching lawyers' pockets.

I doubt there's the remotest restriction on the OP summarising the letter, paraphrasing its meaning or, up to a point, lifting relevant sections, which may well achieve what he requires.

 

[grumpy_o_g]

I have had an email from the landlord. I do not want to share the details yet as it seems there are some legal rumblings in the background.

However, the last sentence of his letter says

" May we remind you that under GDPR this is a personal letter in reply to your emails and should not be disseminated in any form."

Really and truly ?

My opinion FWIW..

If it's a personal letter then you can ignore anything in it as it's not commercial or legal I would have thought. He has a very marginal right that you don't forward his personal details to your solicitor or lawyer (marginal because he's actually sent you the data and then requested restrictions) but that's if it's commercial - if it's personal then even that doesn't apply but it also means that anything in the letter is just a friendly bit gossip or an opinion so I'm not sure what the point of the email is. He definitely cannot say you cannot disseminate it in any form, even if you both have Controllers and are regulated as organisations by the GDPR. Disseminate is a very strange word to use anyway. It would mean spreading on social media or via gossip in the pub to me, not forwarding to a specific third-party. Bottom line is he doesn't know what he's talking about - just be a little careful as stuff like this frequently creates confusion amongst others if you proceed in a small claims court for example - it can be dealt with but you need to have a definitive answer ready to any accusations that may distract from the central issue.

 

[Thistle]

I have had an email from the landlord. I do not want to share the details yet as it seems there are some legal rumblings in the background.

However, the last sentence of his letter says

" May we remind you that under GDPR this is a personal letter in reply to your emails and should not be disseminated in any form."

Really and truly ?

As others have suggested, I think this suggestion is plain wrong. Perhaps more importantly, however, is the fact that the landlord doesn't want the letter in the public domain. That may suggest (a) that he is aware of, and doesn't much like, his dealings with the mooring holders being aired on public forums and (b) that he would regard publication of the letter as an unwanted escalation of the situation.

My suggestion, for what it's worth, would be: to ask the mods to withdraw the threads, at least for the time being; to accept openly that some of the mooring holders actions may inadvertently have caused the landlord hurt and to apologise for that; to regard the landlord's email as a welcome opening of 2-way communication and to see if a meeting can be set up between the landlord and/or his representative and one or, preferably, two of the mooring holders to try to resolve the situation to the benefit of both sides. I appreciate that some of this may have been tried before but I don't see that there can be any loss - and possibly considerable gain - by trying it again.

 

[RichardS]

Disseminate is a very strange word to use anyway. It would mean spreading on social media or via gossip in the pub to me, not forwarding to a specific third-party.

My interpretation is that "disseminate" means "communicate widely" which is analogous to publishing so disseminating the letter would probably be a breach of copyright although enforcing it under such would be interesting. However, short of publishing, one can share a letter with anyone of one's choosing.

Richard

 

[chrishscorp]

As others have suggested, I think this suggestion is plain wrong. Perhaps more importantly, however, is the fact that the landlord doesn't want the letter in the public domain. That may suggest (a) that he is aware of, and doesn't much like, his dealings with the mooring holders being aired on public forums and (b) that he would regard publication of the letter as an unwanted escalation of the situation.

My suggestion, for what it's worth, would be: to ask the mods to withdraw the threads, at least for the time being; to accept openly that some of the mooring holders actions may inadvertently have caused the landlord hurt and to apologise for that; to regard the landlord's email as a welcome opening of 2-way communication and to see if a meeting can be set up between the landlord and/or his representative and one or, preferably, two of the mooring holders to try to resolve the situation to the benefit of both sides. I appreciate that some of this may have been tried before but I don't see that there can be any loss - and possibly considerable gain - by trying it again.

Indeed, if a line of communication has been opened by the Landlord it will not hurt the situation if the threads are pulled, the OP would be free to come back and update in due course if that was appropriate.

 

[lw395]

As others have suggested, I think this suggestion is plain wrong. Perhaps more importantly, however, is the fact that the landlord doesn't want the letter in the public domain. That may suggest (a) that he is aware of, and doesn't much like, his dealings with the mooring holders being aired on public forums and (b) that he would regard publication of the letter as an unwanted escalation of the situation.

My suggestion, for what it's worth, would be: to ask the mods to withdraw the threads, at least for the time being; to accept openly that some of the mooring holders actions may inadvertently have caused the landlord hurt and to apologise for that; to regard the landlord's email as a welcome opening of 2-way communication and to see if a meeting can be set up between the landlord and/or his representative and one or, preferably, two of the mooring holders to try to resolve the situation to the benefit of both sides. I appreciate that some of this may have been tried before but I don't see that there can be any loss - and possibly considerable gain - by trying it again.

^This^

Plus speak to a solicitor and/or RYA legal team.

 

[Pavalijo]

You could redact any personal details (and anything identifying the location of you wish) and send it to whoever you wish by PM, provided you trust them to keep it confidential.
I cannot see how the communication could be copyrighted, and I thought GDPR related to personal data (address, DOB, bank details etc) rather than content. If the letter is headed without prejudice then that is to prevent it being used in any future court proceedings, but does not stop you showing it to your advisors.
But I agree that placing it in an open forum may be seen as provocative.

 

[prv]

I cannot see how the communication could be copyrighted

Then you don't know anything about copyright . Anything that a person creates in a durable medium is automatically subject to copyright, whether it's a masterpiece in oils or a rude note on a napkin.

In a modern world where copying many things is trivially easy, and necessary for some forms of communication, this sometimes collides a bit with everyday practice, but nevertheless it's how the law stands.

(I don't know anything about the GDPR but I suspect that part is nonsense designed to sound intimidating.)

Pete

 

[RichardS]

Then you don't know anything about copyright . Anything that a person creates in a durable medium is automatically subject to copyright, whether it's a masterpiece in oils or a rude note on a napkin.

In a modern world where copying many things is trivially easy, and necessary for some forms of communication, this sometimes collides a bit with everyday practice, but nevertheless it's how the law stands.

(I don't know anything about the GDPR but I suspect that part is nonsense designed to sound intimidating.)

Pete

In addition, see post 15 and earlier for full discussion of the copyright issue.

Richard