The much anticipated appeal in the case of Lloyd v Google is listed to be heard in the Supreme Court on 28 and 29 April 2021. In what is often referred to as (potentially) the UK’s first class action for misuse of data, Google is appealing the Court of Appeal’s order ([2019] EWCA Civ 1599) that granted Mr Lloyd permission to serve proceedings outside of the jurisdiction on Google in the USA, for allegedly collecting and selling browser generated information without the user’s consent, for a period between 2011 and 2012. For more detail on the case please see our previous article “Lloyd v Google: data breach class actions, have the floodgates opened?”.

Mr Lloyd is a representative claimant, in other words he is bringing this action (a.k.a. class action) on behalf of an estimated 4.4 million unidentified iPhone users, seeking compensation for an alleged breach of section 4(4) of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA 1998). While the case was brought under the old Data Protection Act 1998, interpretation of the principles of the GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 is likely to be similar.

Our team of data and privacy experts will be providing further commentary on this appeal and what it means in practice so watch this space!