Durant v Financial Services Authority [2003] EWCA Civ 1746 is a judicial decision of the English Court of Appeal in relation to the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998.

In about July or August 2000, he sought the assistance of the Financial Services Authority (the "FSA") to obtain this disclosure.

Mr Durant's application originally came before District Judge Rose who refused to make an order for further disclosure against the FSA.

That case held "that 'personal data' covered the name of a person or identification of him by some other means, for instance by giving his telephone number or information regarding his working conditions or hobbies."

[5] The court accepted two fundamental points:[6] first, that the protection given by the legislation is for the privacy of personal data, not documents, the latter mostly retrievable by a far cruder searching mechanism than the former; and second, of the practical reality of the task that the Act imposes on all data controllers of searching for specific and readily accessible information about individuals.

Auld LJ held that parliament could not have intended that courts in applications under section 7(9) should be able routinely to second-guess decisions of data controllers, who may be employees of bodies large or small, public or private or be self-employed.

160, that the discretion conferred by that provision is general and untrammelled, a view supported, I consider, by the observations of the European Court in Lindquist, at paras.