Kate is Of Counsel in the intellectual property department. Kate specialises in data protection and privacy law and regularly advises clients in the UK and North America on a wide variety of data privacy matters. She has won praise for her "user-friendly advice and wonderfully precise drafting" (Chambers UK 2009).
She has over 10 years experience of advising clients on data protection and privacy law, including in relation to:
- leading international teams of lawyers in global data transfer projects;
- providing internal compliance reviews and training;
- handling requests for access to personal information (contentious and routine);
- web site privacy policies, the use of images and photographs, CCTV-related issues;
- transactional matters, including data processing contracts, licensing/data sharing agreements, due diligence analysis.
Kate's practice encompasses acting for financial institutions, communications service providers, utilities providers, large private sector employers and software developers on a broad range of data privacy, intellectual property and IT law issues in contentious as well as non-contentious areas.
Kate is a leading expert on data protection and privacy law at Herbert Smith, a founding member of the firm's Data Privacy Group and is a regular contributor to a range of professional journals on topical data protection and privacy, IP and IT issues. She is a member of the Editorial Board for the journal: Privacy and Data Protection and a regular speaker at conferences and professional seminars. Kate is a contributing author of the Law Society’s Data Protection Handbook, now in its second edition.
Kate has a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering, Manufacture and Management and a Diploma in Intellectual Property Law and Practice. She was admitted as a solicitor in 1997 and is qualified as a Solicitor Advocate.
Credentials
- an international electronics firm on the multi-jurisdictional review of data flows and processing operations. This is one of the leading projects of its kind in data protection, involving thirty countries
- an international power generation concern on data privacy regulation in the context of the implementation in the EU of an ethics helpline as part of a global corporate governance initiative
- AOL on general UK and EU privacy compliance advice
- BSkyB regarding numerous data protection enquiries over the course of the year
- Chevron in relation to data transfers
- a city law firm: tactical advice on, and management of, a contentious subject access request made by a former partner of that firm
- Credit Suisse in relation to requests for personal data by non-UK regulators and law enforcement agencies
- an international investment bank on requests for disclosures of information by international regulators in relation to an investigation of a former employee for fraud and handling a very substantial contentious subject access request made by that person
- Tata Motors on data privacy issues arising in the context of the acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover, involving coordinating the response from other EU counsel
- Tetley GB on data protection compliance
- advising on English data protection law and coordinating multi-jurisdictional data protection advice for clients, including for an organisation publishing lists of unclaimed insurance policies on an internet site to be hosted in the US
- advising clients on the data privacy implications of IT migration projects, in particular in respect of the transfer of personnel and client databases