11KBW’s Information, Media, and Technology (IMT) Group is made up of barristers with unparalleled expertise in data, privacy, media, information rights and technology disputes. Whether such disputes arise in the regulatory context, before the civil courts, and tribunals, the Administrative Court or the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, our members, as leaders in the IMT field, are perfectly placed to assist.
The IMT Group is distinguished by its cross-disciplinary approach. Our services are flexible, commercial, and responsive. Cases involving novel technologies seldom fit into easy legal categories, and clients need barristers at ease with a range of disciplines, practice areas, and jurisdictions. The IMT Group at 11KBW offers that acumen, combining deep experience with 11KBW’s reputation for high quality service and first-rate advocacy. The IMT Group also operates the Panopticon blog and podcast.
IMT EXPERTISE
11KBW is second to none in a range of overlapping and rapidly-developing areas of IMT law, including:
Technology, AI, and social media
The IMT Group at 11KBW is the first port of call for cases involving digital technology, whether arising in the commercial, media, employment, sports, regulatory, or other legal contexts. Our members advise regularly on the law relating to artificial intelligence, deepfakes, algorithms, encryption, blockchain and other developing technologies. In 2024 Sweet & Maxwell will be publishing Online Safety: Law and Practice, a volume authored by barristers at 11KBW about the new Online Safety Act 2023 (eds. Anya Proops KC and Jamie Susskind). As well as acting in the leading cases, barristers at 11KBW regularly research, write, and lecture about the law and how it might develop in the future.
Data protection and information law
For more than a decade, we have been recognised as the leading data/information rights set at the Bar, reflected in the fact that we are currently ranked by both Chambers & Partners and the Legal 500 as the only top tier set for data protection. Many IMT Group members are listed as “Star Individuals” in recognition of their ground-breaking work in this area. Across the years, our barristers have acted in data/information rights cases of the highest political, social and legal significance, and have been central to the development of the law in this area. We also lead the field when it comes to freedom of information law, our barristers having appeared in nearly all the leading cases to date.
Data litigation and regulation
No set better understands the dynamics of data regulation or the interplay between civil litigation and regulation in the data sphere. Our members are preeminent in data/information-based civil actions conducted before the ordinary courts, including the fast-moving and complex field of data privacy class actions. Importantly, we also have a deep understanding of the regulatory environment. This means we are also the leading set when it comes to cases for and against the Information Commissioner’s Office, having acted in almost all of the leading enforcement cases under the Data Protection Acts 1998 and 2018, the GDPR/UK GDPR and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.
Media law and privacy disputes
Media law disputes are changing. Those disputes increasingly concern the operation of new digital technologies, including the operation of intermediary service providers. They require practitioners to have a deep understanding of every facet of media and information law. As well as being able to offer pre-eminent barristers with expertise across the full media law spectrum (including defamation, common law privacy claims, breach of confidence, harassment claims and claims that otherwise require a balancing of Article 8 privacy rights and Article 10 free expression rights), the IMT Group has unparalleled experience of advising and acting in media cases involving new technologies, including cases involving some of the largest online intermediary service providers in the world. Such cases are responsible for driving many of the most significant recent developments of modern media law. Members of chambers also regularly act in cases concerning challenges to the regulation of broadcast content in the UK (including all of the leading recent cases involving the UK’s media and communications regulator, Ofcom), as well as in proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights in cases concerning freedom of expression and the media.
Reputation management
The ability of businesses and public figures to protect their reputations, and to litigate the use of sensitive and confidential information, is more important than ever. Members of the IMT Group have acted in numerous high-profile cases for both claimants and defendants in this sphere and have been the first port of call for both FTSE100 companies and prominent individuals bringing or defending high-value claims involving reputational and information law issues.
Judicial review and investigatory powers
IMT Group members offer unrivalled experience of dealing with data/technology-based cases before the Administrative Court and the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. Such expertise is underpinned by 11KBW’s very extensive experience of data-related judicial review cases, where we act both for and against the government, and a wide array of other public authorities.
