outsourcing GP appointments to India: is this legal under DPA?

[Peter Fairbrother]

Nicholas Bohm wrote:
> On 20/01/2011 11:09, Peter Mitchell wrote:
>> Nicholas Bohm wrote  on 19-01-11 18:17:
>>> The question is, who does the exporting?  And the answer, now - I think
>>> - as then, is that it is the person who does the acts which cause the
>>> data to be exported.  That may indeed be the person who, from outside
>>> the UK, sends the request to the UK website which makes the data
>>> readable abroad.
>> In the recent Sportradar case, the High Court Chancery Division
>> decided that "a company is responsible for 'making available'
>> internet-hosted material in the country where its host server is
>> based, not in the country where the material is read or used".
>> http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2010/2911.html

> An interesting case. 
> 
> The judge said at 74:  "I have come to the conclusion that the better
> view is that the act of making available to the public by online
> transmission is committed and committed only where the transmission
> takes place. 


> It is true that the placing of data on a server in one
> state can make the data available to the public of another state but
> that does not mean that the party who has made the data available has
> committed the act of making available by transmission in the State of
> reception. 

The last sentence is obvious, in hindsight anyway.

The company who did the act of putting the data online in country A 
thereby made the data available in country B - but they did not commit 
that act in country B.

The first sentence however apparently ignores the possibility that a 
person in country B might also be making data (more) available by 
requesting it - something which afaict [1] the judge did not consider, 
as he was only considering the actions of the company who put the data 
online.

I therefore think he merely misspoke on that point, on which no weight 
can be given to his remarks.

So it doesn't really touch on the meaning of "make available" in any 
deep way, and it doesn't have anything much to do with outsourcing data 
processing to India afaics - the company did the act of putting the data 
online in country A.


[1] I think - it's a horribly complex judgement.

-- Peter Fairbrother