Business contact based on observed activity - is it right? My mother recently posted this on Facebook, but I'm interested in terms of the legalities regarding communication and observation. Earlier this year I joined a gym. Small one, based in local town, training in groups of four or fewer. Paid in advance for six months, because that is how their membership works. I stopped going in July because of an injury, and started back in October. Round about the same time I returned, I started going to another gym as well to see a personal trainer. This second gym is closer, has no stairs, has a car park and the trainer is cheaper. Also, the work I do is different and I find it more enjoyable, and it is pay as you go. But because I had paid in advance I arranged to go to gym 1 once a week, and to see the new trainer in gym 2 once a week as well. Just had a call from gym 1 to say someone had seen me in gym 2(!) and had gym 1 done something to upset me. Is this normal gym protocol? It has seriously pissed me off. Surely you can go to as many gyms as you want? I'm not intending to take any action legal or otherwise, I'm just curious on the potential legalities/ethics of the observations etc. Please feel free to edit the question title or content as I'm finding it hard to word. We are in the UK. Thanks
Is the question just whether a company can contact its customers to ensure that they're happy with the company's services? If so, the answer is generally yes. I can think of no reason why this would change based on the fact that someone saw her using the services of a competitor. Your mother seems to be treating the phone call as an accusation, but it appears to be standard customer-relationship maintenance. If she chooses to approach it differently, she can use it to improve her bargaining power with Gym 1.
You're misreading the law. You need to keep reading the section you referenced (emphasis added): The disclosure...shall be made in writing and delivered through the consumer’s account with the business, if the consumer maintains an account with the business, or by mail or electronically at the consumer’s option if the consumer does not maintain an account with the business Thus, the option to have the disclosure sent by mail only applies to consumers who do not have an account with the business. Since presumably a large number of sites only maintain personal information for users with accounts, such sites need not provide a mail option. Further, it doesn't say there needs to be a button: you just need the ability to say you'd like it mailed to you in the request somehow, and then they need to comply when you do.
It is the tenant's responsibility to understand the written contract. Oral statements about the contract do have to be consistent with the written contract (that is, in the context where you ask the landlord what a particular clause means before signing -- not in the case where you are modifying an existing contract). If I were renting a room and the contract says "Du må betale $1000 hver dag", which I don't understand because my Norwegian is terrible, I would ask about this, and the landlord might say that it means "You must pay $1000 every month", which could be a decent deal. Actually, the clause says "You must pay $1000 every day". When the reality of the situation becomes clear, then it is obvious that we didn't have an agreement in the first place. Perhaps he mis-spoke, or his English is as bad as my Norwegian, but I would not be held to rate in the written contract, assuming that I could back up my claim that he gave me that interpretation: the lease would probably be voided, as not an actual agreement. The underlying principle is that there has to be a "meeting of the minds" where the parties understand what they will get and what they must give, and there was a demonstrable failure of understanding. On the other hand, if I sign a contract without really reading it carefully, and there is a clause in English (which I speak) saying that I have to pay $1000 a day, but I didn't really think about the clause so that in a sense I didn't understand what I had agreed to, well, I may still be on the hook. (On the third hand, a court would probably say that's a ridiculous rent and void the contract on policy grounds). In general, "not my first language" is not a get-out-of-contract card, though attempts to trick people into signing documents in languages that they really have no understanding of won't be successful. Virtually nobody but a lawyer actually understands contractual language, yet contracts are enforced all the time. A contract can be explicitly modified by verbal agreement, or can be entirely verbal, but oral agreements face evidence problems, namely, what exactly did A and B say? It's scientifically well established that parties can be morally certain that the conversation went "A" (for one person) and "Not A" (for the other person). Using "could" rather than "would" in speech makes a huge difference in interpretation. There is a rule, the parol evidence rule, which essentially says that unless there is a good reason to not do so, the contract as written is what is enforced. Even if the conversation had been written into the contract, there's no basis in the contract for objectively determining whether a thing is old and "just broke". So even as an additional clause in the contract, it doesn't afford you a clear escape hatch. You might be able to prove with expert testimony that indeed the pipes had been corroding for a hundred years, and you could not have caused the pipes to burst.
From a German perspective, it would be absolutely normal and expected that you're providing identity &amp; contact information publicly. Per §5 TMG (Impressumspflicht / Anbieterkennzeichnung) this is required for German tele-media offerings, such as websites or email providers, even if non-commercial. Whereas for you as an upstanding and diligent email provider an abuse@... address should be enough, the German context expects a street address where you could be served with a lawsuit… There absolutely are privacy and free speech issues with this compelled self-doxxing. But by running an email service, you're not just acting as a private person. Your privacy interests and the transparency and security interests of other people have to be balanced. Now since you are not in Germany, the TMG does not apply to you. You have no legal obligation to provide this information. However, the ISP also has no legal obligation to to deliver your email. The ISP does have an obligation to apply appropriate organizational and technical safety measures. It seems that one organizational measure they have found appropriate is that they will only deliver emails from providers that provide public contact information, as would be the norm in Germany. I am not entirely sure how the GDPR applies here. The GDPR doesn't really allow or prohibit disclosures of personal data, it just requires that every purpose of processing for personal data has a legal bases per GDPR Art 6. One such legal basis is a legitimate interest, which boils down to a balancing test between your rights and freedoms and other people's interests. I'm also not sure if the contact information should be classified as personal data in this context, because the contact info primarily relates to your role as an email provider. I'm also not sure if the ISP is processing your personal data in the sense of the GDPR when they merely require you to publish it on your own site. They would be processing it as soon as they scrape, store, or otherwise use this info.
The official judgements do not reveal the funding for these lawyers; so where can I find this information? Nowhere. The commercial arrangements between lawyers and their clients are private and confidential like any other business transactions. You have no more right to know this then you do to know how your neighbour pays their mortgage. how could she have funded litigation in the EWHC and then EWCA before the UKSC? She may have rich parents or another benefactor who has in interest in her or the outcome of the case. She may have won the lottery. She may be the heiress of a dead rich uncle. By the way, "having" student loans does not mean you "need" student loans. Interest rates on student loans are cheap - if I need to pay $10,000 for a course and have $10,000 earning 5%, I would be nuts to use that if I could take out a loan at 3%.
&quot;Checking someone's digital footprint&quot; could be stalking, depending on the circumstances. The better question to ask is about the legality of a certain action, and not the specific name used in a jurisdiction (although indeed in Washington there is a defined crime of &quot;stalking&quot;). I don't know what you mean by &quot;checking someone's digital footprint&quot;, and it is not defined by law. Looking at RCW 9a.46.110, we can first discern that it does not matter for the definition of the crime where these people live or where the robbery took place. If two people from Alberta travel to Alaska and harass or murder a person from Texas, Washington law does not enter into the equation. The crime that you're asking about is the snooping, so for Washington to have jurisdiction, the snooping has to be &quot;in&quot; Washington. That does not mean that both parties have to be in Washington – there can be complex jurisdictional laws if the accused is in another state or country. The accused can easily be prosecuted in his own state, he can also be prosecuted in a foreign country, if he is caught there or if he is extradited to that country. For the act to be stalking, the first element is that &quot;He or she intentionally and repeatedly harasses or repeatedly follows another person; and...&quot;. Harassment is defined in that section as a knowing and willful course of conduct directed at a specific person which seriously alarms, annoys, harasses, or is detrimental to such person, and which serves no legitimate or lawful purpose. The course of conduct shall be such as would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress, and shall actually cause substantial emotional distress to the petitioner, or when the course of conduct would cause a reasonable parent to fear for the well-being of his or her child. Since there was no communication between the parties, there is no harassment in the legal sense. There is no &quot;following&quot; either, therefore the act fails to constitute stalking w.r.t the first elements. Since the crime is defined by a conjunction of elements and your scenario fails on the first conjunct, it is not &quot;stalking&quot; (it is also not &quot;harassment&quot; as defined in RCW 9A.46.020, 9A.46.060.
Yes australia This is a straight up and down case of “deceptive and misleading conduct”. There is plenty of case law to support that testimonials (which this is) must be genuine, not paid for as they are from an actor. Further, they cannot be cherry-picked. If 5 real people reacted and 2 reacted negatively, you cannot just show the 3 who reacted positively - you have to show them all or otherwise disclose that 3 out 5 people loved the product. When actors (or people who are otherwise getting paid) are used that fact must be disclosed if it is not clear from the context. In a typical ad where people are just shown using the product without giving a personal endorsement it’s sufficiently clear that they are actors. However, in the type of ad you describe if they were actors this would need to be stated. Television and radio personalities must disclose when they are being paid for an endorsement under enforceable codes. Influencers are required to do so under non-binding codes, however, it is likely that breach of these codes would also be a breach of the law.
http://www.healthinfoprivacybc.ca/confidentiality/when-can-and-cant-they-tell-others is a pretty good summary. Different rules apply to private practices than public clinics and hospitals. I will assume that the clinic on campus is private. This is a summary of the summary about who your information can be shared with: Health care professionals can share information within your "circle of care". Specifically, they are allowed to assume your consent to this but you can explicitly withdraw that consent. This would include doctors within the same practice. Admin staff can access your information for administrative purposes. Anyone you have authorised them to share it with e.g. relatives, friends etc. The Medical Services Plan for billing and admin If you are unable to drive If there is suspected of child abuse If you are wounded by a gun or a knife If you are a danger to others For your specific questions: I asked about it and they said it's confidential, but confidential to the clinic. Correct, unless you explicitly revoke this. the counselling department can share information with the doctors This is tricker, these people may be either within your "circle of care" or they may be part of the same organisation. Notwithstanding, councillors are not doctors and are governed by the everyday laws related to confidentiality i.e. information given in confidence is confidential and everything else isn't. If you are told the limits of the confidentiality i.e. they tell the doctor, then those are the limits unless you renegotiate them. he would know I only have one kidney? Well you said "the counselling department can share information with the doctors" and this would require the information going the other way i.e. the doctor sharing with the councillor. Even if this type of sharing was OK in general (and I'm not sure it is, see above); the information shared should only be what is required for the councillor to do their job - the number of kidneys you have is probably irrelevant to this. What laws apply to situations like this where confidential information in one entity (medical office) decides to share it without the consent of the patients to another entity (the counselling dept.)? Well, we are not sure there are 2 entities: legally there may only be 1 - the university. Anyway, the laws are the Personal Information Protection Act and common law (Smith v. Jones, [1999] 1 SCR 455)