A cosmetic surgery provider has obtained a temporary High Court injunction restraining the company that maintained its website from deleting any important data relating to the business.
Dublin-registered RAS Medical Ltd secured the interim order against Create for the Web Limited, trading as Ireland Website Design, which maintained and supported the plaintiff’s website for the last four years.
Represented by Neil Rafter, RAS Medical claims that following a falling out between the parties over an alleged secret recording of a Zoom call, the defendant has failed to undertake to retain important data relating to the cosmetic surgery business.
The permanent loss of the data, which the court heard includes medical data, could have “untold implications” for the business and for the health of RAS Medical’s patients.
The matter came before Mr Justice David Nolan on Thursday, who, an on ex parte basis, granted orders requiring the defendant to preserve data held by it in respect of RAS Medical’s website.
The judge said he was satisfied from the evidence before the court at this stage to grant a temporary order.
The matter will return to court next week.
RAS Medical, which employs several surgeons to carry out various procedures, claims it entered into an arrangement with the defendant, which has a registered address in Tramore, Co Waterford, in 2019 for the provision, maintenance and support of several websites including auralia.ie, botoxdublin.com and tummytucksurgery.ie.
However, RAS claims, its relationship with the defendant irretrievably broke down when it learned that a private conversation between one of its directors, Dr Ahmed Salman, and a representative of the website company had been recorded by the defendant.
It is also claimed that the recording of the Zoom call was done without Dr Salman’s knowledge and had been published to a former employee of RAS.
The parties had agreed to end their business relationship last month.
However, RAS claims it asked the defendant to preserve all data relevant to its business, including emails, records, Zoom calls and all information relating to the websites for the last six years.
It claims the defendant said in correspondence in late October that it would continue to provide services in respect of the transfer of the websites to a new provider.
The parties agreed the services would continue to the end of the month
RAS claims that despite further correspondence between the parties no undertakings were given by the defendant in relation to the plaintiff’s request to preserve the data in question.
RAS says it was left with no option other than to come to court and seek various orders against the defendant company.
As well as injunctions, RAS also seeks various orders compelling the defendant to comply with its obligations under the Data Protection Act and damages for allegedly processing and disseminating the plaintiff’s personal data without consent or lawful authority and in a malicious manner.
