Section 176 — Data Protection Act 2018: Staying special purposes proceedings

Staying special purposes proceedings 176 1 In any special purposes proceedings before a court, if the controller or processor claims, or it appears to the court, that any personal data to which the proceedings relate—

a is being processed only for the special purposes, b is being processed with a view to the publication by any person of journalistic, academic, artistic or literary material, and c has not previously been published by the controller, the court must stay or, in Scotland, sist the proceedings.

2 In considering, for the purposes of subsection (1)(c), whether material has previously been published, publication in the immediately preceding 24 hours is to be ignored.

3 Under subsection (1), the court must stay or sist the proceedings until either of the following conditions is met—

a a determination of the Commissioner under section 174 with respect to the personal data or the processing takes effect;

b where the proceedings were stayed or sisted on the making of a claim, the claim is withdrawn.