A High Court judge has dismissed an appeal from Dublin Bus that they should be allowed to withhold CCTV footage pertaining to a Dublin Bus accident claim dating back to October 2008.
The claimant in the case, an unnamed woman from Dublin, had made a claim for Dublin Bus accident compensation in October 2009 following an alleged fall on a Dublin Bus the previous year. When Dublin Bus denied their liability for the woman´s injuries, the Injuries Board Ireland had issued an authorisation for the woman to pursue her claim through the courts.
During the discovery process, Dublin Bus revealed to the woman´s solicitors that CCTV footage existed and invited the solicitors to view the video at Dublin Bus´s offices. Once they had seen the footage, the solicitors requested a copy of the video, but Dublin Bus refused on the grounds that the information they had on the claimant was privileged and, as evidence in potential litigation, they were not prepared to release it.
The claimant´s solicitors made a complaint to the Data Protection Commissioner, who ruled in January 2011 that Dublin Bus should release the CCTV video to the solicitor´s in support of their client´s Dublin Bus accident claim. However, Dublin Bus appealed the decision and took the matter to court. In July 2011, Judge Jacqueline Linnane upheld the commissioner´s decision in the Circuit Civil Court, but Dublin Bus were not satisfied and appealed once more to the High Court on a point of law.
At the High Court in Dublin, Mr Justice John Hedigan agreed with the decision of the Data Protection Commissioner´s view that “the existence of legal proceedings between somebody seeking information and the data controller does not preclude the requester from making an access request under data protection legislation, nor did it justify the controller refusing the request”. The judge also found that Dublin Bus had “not raised a point of law giving rise to grounds for overturning Judge Linnane’s decision”.