Protecting athletes’ data: an examination of database
rights in the UK and EU – David Reade QC blogs for Law in Sport. This article was first produced for and published by LawinSport.com
I have just visited the Church of Madonna de Ghisallo, the
Church of the Patron Saint of Cycling. It sits on the long climb up from Lake
Como, occasionally part of the Giro D’Italia and the Tour of Lombardy.
Adjoining the Church is a museum containing a collection of cycling artefacts.One of the most interesting exhibits is a 1905 racing cycle,
whose essential frame design, complete with drop handle bars, appears
fundamentally the same as that of the modern cycle. The similarity is of course
superficial and cycling, in common with most sports, has benefited from
technological developments. Those developments embrace the love of modern sport
for amassing data. That of course us brings us back to cycling and the allegations that Chris Frome’s data was hacked
during the course of the Tour De France.1 There have been notable other examples of data theft or misuse
in sport, particularly where it is being used to gain technical insights. These
have occasionally led to the courts, for example the Force India Formula One
Team litigation against Lotus.2In such context, this blog examines the UK and EU laws on
database rights and the protection it offers to sports teams engaged in data
collection. To read the full blog visit www.LawinSport.com
