Category Archives: Information Commissioner

June 15, 2015 · 7:58 pm

What a difference a day makes

Back in 2013 I blogged about a little-known (not unknown, as some commenters thought I was suggesting) oddity of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). This oddity is that a bank holiday falling in any part of the United Kingdom counts as a non-working-day for the purposes of FOIA. So, as January 2nd (or the nearest substitute day) is a bank holiday in Scotland, it is not a working day for the purposes of calculating the maximum timescale for compliance with a request made under FOIA, despite the fact that Scotland has its own Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.
What “bank holiday” means, according to section 10(6) of FOIA, is 

any day other than a Saturday, a Sunday, Christmas Day, Good Friday or a day which is a bank holiday under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 in any part of the United Kingdom

And section 1 of the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 says 

the days specified in Schedule 1 to this Act shall be bank holidays in England and Wales, in Scotland and in Northern Ireland as indicated in the Schedule

The Schedule therefore provides a number of dates which are to be considered as bank holidays

All straightforward then? Not quite. Sections 1(2) and 1(3) of The Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 also provide that the Queen can effectively remove or add a bank holiday “by proclamation”. What this means has recently been considered by the First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights) (FTT), and it shows that even the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) can get this issue wrong sometimes. In the case, the ICO had said in its decision notice that the public authority, Monitor, had complied with its obligation to respond to a FOIA request within twenty working days, because the period involved included two bank holidays within the UK (on 14 July (Northern Ireland) and 4 August (Scotland)). However, when faced with an appeal to the FTT by the requester, the ICO faltered, and

recalculated the 20 day period and concluded that while July 14 was commemorated as the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne for the purpose of a public holiday in Northern Ireland it was not a bank holiday and accordingly the response from Monitor had been outside the 20 day period

Not so fast, said the FTT – remember section 1(3) of the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971? Well, as the London Gazette records, on 14 June 2013 a proclamation was made by Her Majesty, providing that

…We consider it desirable that Monday the fourteenth day of July in the year 2014 should be a bank holiday in Northern Ireland

As the FTT said

The effect of this was to insert a bank holiday in July…accordingly [Monitor] responded within the time limit

All very arcane and abstruse, no doubt, but practitioners and requesters should note that the London Gazette records that on 18 July 2014 Her Majesty also proclaimed that 13th July 2015 would also be a bank holiday. So, for FOI requests whose normal twenty-working-day period includes the date of 13th July this year, everyone needs to bear in mind that, as hard as they may be working on that date, it is not to be counted as a FOIA working day. 

But everyone should also bear in mind that, if they find this tricky, even the ICO gets confused sometimes.

The views in this post (and indeed all posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with..

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May 23, 2015 · 9:21 am

No Information Rights Levy for ICO – where now for funding?

The ICO’s plan for an “information rights levy” appears to have been scuppered by the government. But is retaining data protection notification fees the way to solve the funding problem?

Back in the heady days of January 2012, when a naive but optimistic European Commission proposed a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), to replace the existing 1995 Directive, one of the less-commented-on proposals was to remove the requirement for data controllers to notify their processing activities to the national data protection authority. However, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) certainly noticed it, because the implications were that, at a stroke, a large amount of ICO funding would disappear. Currently, section 18(5) of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), and accompanying secondary legislation, mean that data controllers (unless they have an exemption) must pay an annual fee to the ICO of either £35 or £500 (depending upon the size of the organisation). In 2012-2013 this equated to an estimated income of £17.4m, and this income effectively funds all of the ICO’s data protection regulatory actions (its FOI functions are funded by grant-in-aid from the Ministry of Justice).

Three years later, and the GDPR is still not with us. However, it will eventually be passed, and when it is, it seems certain that the requirement under European law to notify will be gone. Because of this, as the Justice Committee recognised in 2013, alternative ICO funding means need to be identified as soon as possible. The ICO’s preferred choice, and one which Christopher Graham has certainly been pushing for, was an “Information Rights Levy”, the details of which were not specified, but which it appears was proposed to be paid by data controllers and public authorities (subject to FOI) alike. In the 2013/14 ICO Annual Report Graham was bullish in calling for action:

Parliament needs to get on with the task of establishing a single, graduated information rights levy to fund the important work of the ICO as the effective upholder of our vital right to privacy and right to know

But this robust approach doesn’t seem to have worked. At a recent meeting of the ICO Management Board a much more pessimistic view emerges. In a report entitled “Registration Fee Strategy” it is said that

The ICO has previously highlighted the need for an ‘information rights fee’ or one fee, paid by organisations directly to the ICO, to fund all information rights activities. Given concerns across government that this would result in private sector cross subsidising public sector work, the ICO recognises that this is unlikely in the short term

The report goes on, therefore, to talk about proposed changes to the current fee/notification process, and about ways of identifying who needs to pay. 

But, oddly, it seems to assume that although the GDPR will remove the requirement for a data controller  to notify processing to the ICO, the UK will retain the discretion to continue with such arrangements (and to charge a fee). I’m not sure this is right. As I’ve written previously, under data protection law at least some recreational bloggers have a requirement to notify (and pay a fee), and the legal authorities are clear that the law’s ambit extends to, for instance, individuals operating domestic CCTV, if that CCTV covers public places where identifiable individuals are. Indeed, as the 2004 Lindqvist case found 

The act of referring, on an internet page, to various persons and identifying them by name or by other means, for instance by giving their telephone number…constitutes ‘the processing of personal data…[and] is not covered by any of the exceptionsin Article 3(2) of Directive 95/46 [section 36 of the DPA transposes Article 3(2) into domestic law]

It is arguable that, to varying extents, we are all data controllers now (and ones who will struggle to avail ourselves of the data protection exemption for domestic purposes). Levying a fee on all of us, in order that we can lawfully express ourselves, has the potential to be a serious infringement of our right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and even more directly, Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

The problem of how to effectively fund the ICO in a time of austerity is a challenging one, and I don’t envy those at the ICO and in government who are trying to solve it, but levying a tax on freedom of expression (which notification arguably already is, and would almost certainly be if the GDPR doesn’t actually require notification) is not the way to do so.

The views in this post (and indeed all posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with..

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May 1, 2015 · 6:52 am

Shameless

Only very recently I wrote about how the Liberal Democrats had been found by the Information Commissioner’s Officer (ICO) to have been in breach of their obligations under anti-spam laws (or, correctly, the ICO had determined it was “unlikely” the Lib Dems had complied with the law). This was because they had sent me unsolicited emails promoting their party without my consent, in contravention of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR). The ICO told me that “we have written to the organisation to remind them of their obligations under the PECR and ensure that valid consent is obtained from individuals”.

Well, the reminder hasn’t worked: today I went on the Lib Dem site and noticed the invitation to agree that “The NHS needs an extra £8bn”. Who could disagree? There was a box to enter my email address and “back our campaign”. Which campaign did they mean? Who knows? I assumed the campaign to promote NHS funding, but there was no privacy notice at all (at least on the mobile site). I entered an email address, because I certainly agree with a campaign that the NHS needs an extra £8bn pounds, but what I certainly didn’t do was consent to receive email marketing.

Untitled

But of course I did…within eight hours I received an email from someone called Olly Grender asking me to donate to the Lib Dems. Why on earth would I want to do that? And a few hours later I got an email from Nick Clegg himself, reiterating Olly’s message. Both emails were manifestly, shamelessly, sent in contravention of PECR, only a couple of weeks after the ICO assured me they were going to “remind” the Lib Dems of the law.

Surely the lesson is the same one the cynics have told us over the years – don’t believe what politicians tell you.

And of course, only this week there was a further example, with the notorious Telegraph “business leaders” letter. The open letter published by the paper, purporting to come from 5000 small business owners, had in fact been written by Conservative Campaign Headquarters, and signatories  were merely people who had filled in a form on the Conservative party website agreeing to sign the letter but who were informed in a privacy notice that “We will not share your details with anyone outside the Conservative Party”. But share they did, and so it was that multiple duplicate signatories, and signatories who were by no means small business owners, found their way into the public domain. Whether any of them will complain to the ICO will probably determine the extent to which this might have been a contravention, not of PECR (this wasn’t unsolicited marketing), but of the Data Protection Act 1998, and the Conservatives’ obligation to process personal data fairly and lawfully. But whatever the outcome, it’s another example of the abuse of web forms, and the harvesting of email addresses, for the promotion of party political aims.

I will be referring the Lib Dems matter back to the ICO, and inviting them again (they declined last time) to take enforcement action for repeat and apparently deliberate, or reckless, contraventions of their legal obligations under PECR.

The views in this post (and indeed all posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.

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April 25, 2015 · 11:45 am

ICO: Samaritans Radar failed to comply with Data Protection Act

I’ve written so much previously on this blog about Samaritans Radar, the misguided Twitter app launched last year by Samaritans, that I’d thought I wouldn’t have to do so again. However, this is just a brief update on the outcome of the investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) into whether Samaritans were obliged to comply with data protection law when running the app, and, if so, the extent to which they did comply.

To recap, the app monitored the timelines of those the user followed on Twitter, and, if certain trigger words or phrases were tweeted, would send an email alert to the user. This was intended to be a “safety net” so that potential suicidal cries for help were not missed. But what was missed by Samaritans was the fact the those whose tweets were being monitored in this way would have no knowledge of it, and that this could lead to a feeling of uncertainty and unease in some of the very target groups they sought to protect. People with mental health issues raised concerns that the app could actually drive people off Twitter, where there were helpful and supportive networks of users, often tweeting the phrases and words the app was designed to pick up.

Furthermore, questions were raised, by me and many others, about the legality of the app under data protection law. So I made a request to the ICO under the Freedom of Information Act for

any information – such as an assessment of legality, correspondence etc. – which you hold about the “Samaritans Radar” app which Samaritans recently launched, then withdrew in light of serious legal and ethical concerns being raised

After an initial refusal because their investigation was ongoing, the ICO have now disclosed a considerable amount of information. Within it, however, is the substantive assessment I sought, in the form of a letter from the Group Manager for Government and Society to Samaritans. I think it is important to post it in full, and I do so below. I don’t have much to add, other than it vindicates the legal position put forward at the time by me and others (notably Susan Hall and Tim Turner).

19 December 2014

Samaritans Radar app

Many thanks for coming to our office and explaining the background to the development of the Radar application and describing how it worked.  We have now had an opportunity to consider the points made at the  meeting, as well as study the information provided in earlier  teleconferences and on the Samaritans’ website. I am writing to let you know our conclusions on how the Data Protection Act applies to the Radar  application.

We recognise that the Radar app was developed with the best of intentions and was withdrawn shortly after its launch but, as you know, during its operation we received a number of queries and concerns about the application. We have been asked for our vtew on whether personal data was processed in compliance with data protection prlnciples and whether the Samaritans are data controllers. You continue to believe that you are not data controllers or that personal data has been processed so I am writing to explain detail our conclusions on these points.

Personal data

Personal data is data that relates to an identifiable living individual. It is  our well-established position that data which identifies an individual, even without a name associated with it, may be personal data where it is processed to learn or record something about that individual, or where the processing of that information has an impact upon that individual. According to the information you have provided, the Radar app was a web-based application that used a specially designed algorithm that searched for specific keywords within the Twitter feeds of subscribers to the Radar app. When words indicating distress were detected within a Tweet, an email alert was automatically sent from the Samaritans to the subscriber saying Radar had detected someone they followed who may be going through a tough time and provided a link to that individual’s Tweet. The email asked the subscriber whether they were worried about the Tweet and if yes, they were re-directed to the Samaritans’ website for guidance on the best way of providing support to a follower who may be distressed. According to your FAQs, you also stored Twitter User IDs, Twitter User friends’ IDs, all tagged Tweets including the raw data associated with it and a count of flags against an individual Twitter user’s friends’ ID. These unique identifiers are personal data, in that they can easily be linked back to identifiable individuals.

Based on our understanding of how the application worked, we have reached the conclusion that the Radar service did involve processing of personal data. It used an algorithm to search for words that triggered an automated decision about an individual, at which point it sent an email alert to a Radar subscriber. It singled out an individual’s data with the purpose of differentiating them and treating them differently. In addition, you also stored information about all the Tweets that were tagged.

Data controller

We are aware of your view that you “are neither the data controller nor data processor of the information passing through the app”.

The concept of a data controller is defined in section 1 of the Data Protection 1998 (the DPA) as

“a person who (either alone or jointly or in common with other persons) determines the purposes for which and the manner in which any personal data are, or are to be, processed”

We have concluded that the Radar service has involved processing of personal data. We understand that you used the agency [redacted] to develop and host the application. We are not fully aware of the role of [redacted] but given your central role in setting up and promoting the Radar application, we consider that the Samaritans have determined the manner and purpose of the processing of this personal data and as such you are data controllers. If you wish to be reminded of the approach we take in this area you may find it helpful to consult our guidance on data controllers and data processors. Here’s the link: https://ico.org.uk/media/about-the-ico/documents/1042555/data-controllers-and-data-processors-dp-guidance.pdf

Sensitive personal data

We also discussed whether you had processed sensitive personal data. You explained that the charity did deal with people seeking help for many different reasons and the service was not aimed at people with possible mental health issues. However the mission of the Samaritans is to alleviate emotional distress and reduce the incidence of suicide feelings and suicidal behaviours. In addition, the stated aims of the Radar project, the research behind it and the information provided in the FAQs all emphasise the aim of helping vulnerable peopie online and using the app to detect someone who is suicidal. For example, you say “research has shown there is a strong correlation between “suicidal tweets” and actual suicides and with Samaritans Radar we can turn a social net into a safety net”. Given the aims of the project, it is highly likely that some of the tweets identified to subscribers included information about an
individual’s mental health or other medical information and therefore would have been sensitive personal data.

At our meetings you said that even if you were processing sensitive personal data then Schedule 3 condiüon 5 (“The information contained in the personal data has been made public as a result of steps deliberately taken by the data subject”) was sufficient to legitimise this processing. Our guidance in our Personal Information Online Code of Practice makes it clear that although people post personal information in a way that becomes publicly visible, organisations still have an overarching duty to handle it fairly and to comply with the rules of data protection. The Samaritans are well respected in this field and receiving an email from your organisation carries a lot of weight. Linking an individual’s tweet to an email alert from the Samaritans is unlikely to be perceived in the same light as the information received in the original Tweet — not least because of the risk that people’s tweets were flagged when they were not in any distress at all.

Fair processing

Any processing of personal data must be fair and organisations must consider the effect of the processing on the individuals concerned and whether the processing would be within their reasonable expectations. You indicated that although you had undertaken some elements of an impact assessment, you had not carried out a full privacy impact assessment. You appear to have reached the conclusion that since the Tweets were publicly visible, you did not need to fully consider the privacy risks. For example, on your website you say that “all the data is public, so user privacy is not an issue. Samaritans Radar analyses the Tweets of people you follow, which are public Tweets. It does not look at private Tweets.”

It is our view that if organisations collect information from the internet and use it in a way that’s unfair, they could still breach the data protection principles even though the information was obtained from a publicly available source. It is particularly important that organisations should consider the data protection implications if they are planning to use analytics to make automated decisions that could have a direct effect on individuals. Under section 12 Of the Data Protection Act, individuals have certain rights to prevent decisions being taken about them that are solely based on automated processing of their personal data. The quality of the data being used as a basis for these decisions may also be an issue.

We note that the application was a year in development and that you used leading academics in linguistics to develop your word search algorithm. You also tested the application on a large number of people, although, as we discussed, most if not of these were connected to the project in some way and many were enthusiastic to see the project succeed. As our recent paper on Big Data explains, it is not so much a question of whether the data accurately records what someone says but rather to what extent that information provides a reliable basis for drawing conclusions. Commentators expressed concern at the apparent high level of false positives involving the Radar App (figures in the media suggest only 4% of email alerts were genuine). This raises questions about whether a System operating with such a low success rate could represent fair processing and indicates that many Tweets were being flagged up unnecessarily.

Since you did not consider yourselves to be data controllers, you have not sought the consent of, or provided fair processing notices to, the individuals whose Tweets you flagged to subscribers. It seems unlikely that it would be within people’s reasonable expectations that certain words and phrases from their Tweets would trigger an automatic email alert from the Samaritans saying Radar had detected someone who may be going throuqh a tough time. Our Personal Information Online Code of Practice says it is good practice to only use publicly available information in a way that is unlikely to cause embarrassment, distress or anxiety to the individual concerned. Organisations should only use their information in a way they are likely to expect and to be comfortable with. Our advice is that if in doubt about this, and you are unable to ask permission, you should not collect their information in the first place.

Conclusion

Based on our observations above, we have reached the conclusion that the Radar application did risk causing distress to individuals and was unlikely to be compliant with the Data Protection Act.

We acknowledge that the Samaritans did take responsibility for dealing with the many concerns raised about the application very quickly. The application was suspended on 7 November and we welcomed [redacted] assurances on 14 November that not only was the application suspended but it would not be coming back in anything like its previous form. We also understand that there have been no complaints that indicate that anyone had suffered damage and distress in the very short period the application was in operation.

We do not want to discourage innovation but it is important that organisations should consider privacy throughout the development and implementation of new projects. Failing to do so risks undermining people’s trust in an organisation. We strongly recommend that if you are considering further projects involving the use of online information and technologies you should carry out and publish a privacy impact assessment. This will help you to build trust and engage with the wider public. Guidance on this can be found in our PIA Code of Practice. We also recommend that you look at our paper on Big Data and Data Protection and our Personal Information Online Code of Practice. Building trust and adopting an ethical approach to such projects can also help to ensure you handle people’s information in a fair and transparent way. We would be very happy to advise the Samaritans on data protection compliance in relation any future projects.

The views in this post (and indeed all posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.

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April 24, 2015 · 1:44 pm

ICO finds Lib Dems in breach of ePrivacy law

A few months ago, when I entered my email address on the Liberal Democrats’ website to say that I agreed with the statement 

Girls should never be cut. We must end FGM

I hoped I wouldn’t subsequently receive spam emails promoting the party. However I had no way of knowing because there was no obvious statement explaining what would happen. But, furthermore, I had clearly not given specific consent to receive such emails.

Nonetheless, I did get them, and continue to do so – emails purportedly from Nick Clegg, from Paddy Ashdown and from others, promoting their party and sometimes soliciting donations.

I happen to think the compiling of a marketing database by use of serious and emotive subjects such as female genital mutilation is extraordinarily tasteless. It’s also manifestly unlawful in terms of Lib Dems’ obligations under the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR), which require specific consent to have been given before marketing emails can be sent to individuals.

On the lawfulness point I am pleased to say the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) agrees with me. Having considered my complaint they have said:

I have reviewed your correspondence and the organisations website, and it appears that their current practices would fail to comply with the requirements of the PECR. This is because consent is not knowingly given, clear and specific….As such, we have written to the organisation to remind them of their obligations under the PECR and ensure that valid consent is obtained from individuals.

Great. I’m glad they agree – casual disregard of PECR seems to be rife throughout politics. As I’ve written recently, the Labour Party, UKIP and Plaid Cymru have also spammed my dedicated email account. But I also asked the ICO to consider taking enforcement action (as is my right under regulation 32 of PECR). Disappointingly, they have declined to do so, saying:

enforcement action is not taken routinely and it is our decision whether to take it. We cannot take enforcement action in every case that is reported to us

It’s also disappointing that they don’t say why this is their decision. I know they cannot take enforcement action in every case reported to them, which is why I requested it in this specific case.

However, I will be interested to see whether the outcome of this case changes the Lib Dems’ approach. Maybe it will, but, as I say, they are by no means the only offenders, and enforcement action by the ICO might just have helped to address this wider problem.

The views in this post (and indeed all posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.

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April 19, 2015 · 10:39 am

Information Tribunal increases monetary penalty for company which made spam calls

The trouble with asking for a second opinion is it might be worse than the first one. Reactiv Media get an increased penalty after appealing to the tribunal.

In 2013 the First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights) (“FTT”) heard the first appeal against a monetary penalty notice (“MPN”) imposed by the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”). One of the first things in the appeal (brought by the Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust) to be considered was the extent of the FTT’s jurisdiction when hearing such appeals – was it, as the ICO suggested, limited effectively only to allowing challenges on public law principles? (e.g. that the original decision was irrational, or failed to take relevant factors into account, or took irrelevant factors into account) or was it entitled to approach the hearing de novo, with the power to determine that the ICO’s discretion to serve an MPN had been exercised wrongly, on the facts? The FTT held that the latter approach (similar to the FTT’s jurisdiction in appeals brought under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA)) was the correct one, and, notably, it added the observation (at para. 39) that it was open to the FTT also to increase, as well as decrease, the amount of penalty imposed.

So, although an appeal to the FTT is generally a low-risk low-cost way of having the ICO’s decision reviewed, it does, in the context of MPNs served either under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) or the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR), potentially carry the risk of an increased penalty. And this is precisely what happened when a direct marketing company called Reactiv Media recently appealed an ICO MPN. Reactiv Media bad been held to have made a large number of unsolicited telephone calls to people who had subscribed to the Telephone Preference Service (“TPS”) – the calls were thus in contravention of Reactiv Media’s obligations under regulation 21 of PECR. The ICO determined that this constituted a serious contravention of those obligations, and as some at least of those calls were of a kind likely to cause (or indeed had caused) substantial damage or substantial distress, an MPN of £50,000 was served, under the mechanisms of section 55 of the DPA, as adopted by PECR.

Upon appeal to the FTT, Reactiv Media argued that some of the infringing calls had not been made by them, and disputed that any of them had caused substantial damage or distress. However, the FTT, noting the ICO’s submission that not only had the MPN been properly served, but also that it was lenient for a company with a turnover of £5.8m (a figure higher than the one the ICO had initially been given to understand), held that not only was the MPN “fully justified” – the company had “carried on its business in conscious disregard of its obligations” – but also that the amount should be increased by 50%, to £75,ooo. One presumes, also, that the company will not be given a further opportunity (as they were in the first instance) to take advantage of an early payment reduction.

One is tempted to assume that Reactiv Media thought that an appeal to the FTT was a cheap way of having a second opinion about the original MPN. I don’t know if this is true, but it if is, it is a lesson to other data controllers and marketers that, after an appeal, they might find themselves worse off.

The views in this post (and indeed all posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.

 

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April 13, 2015 · 8:00 am

The Lib Dems’ digital rights bill – an empty promise?

On the 11th of April the Liberal Democrats announced that they would introduce a “Digital Rights Bill” if they were to form part of a coalition government in the next parliament. Among the measures the bill would contain would be, they said

Beefed up powers for the Information Commissioner to fine and enforce disciplinary action on government bodies if they breach data protection laws…Legal rights to compensation for consumers when companies make people sign up online to deliberately misleading and illegible terms & conditions

I found this interesting because the Lib Dems have recently shown themselves particularly unconcerned with digital rights contained in ePrivacy laws. Specifically, they have shown a lack of compliance with the requirement at regulation 22 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR). This regulation forbids the sending of direct marketing by email unless the recipient has notified the sender that she consents to the email being sent. The European directive to which PECR give effect specifies that “consent” should be taken to have been given only by use of

any appropriate method enabling a freely given specific and informed indication of the user’s wishes, including by ticking a box when visiting an Internet website

And the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which regulates PECR, explains in guidance [pdf] that

the person must understand what they are consenting to. Organisations must make sure they clearly and prominently explain exactly what the person is agreeing to, if this is not obvious. Including information in a dense privacy policy or hidden in ‘small print’ which is hard to find, difficult to understand, or rarely read will not be enough to establish informed consent…consent must be a positive expression of choice. It does not necessarily have to be a proactive declaration of consent – for example, consent might sometimes be given by submitting an online form, if there was a clear and prominent statement that this would be taken as agreement and there was the option to opt out. But organisations cannot assume consent from a failure to opt out

But in July last year I began conducting an experiment. I put my name (actually, typed my email address) to a statement on the Lib Dem website saying

Girls should never be cut. We must end FGM

I gave no consent to the sending of direct email marketing from the Lib Dems, and, indeed, the Lib Dems didn’t even say they would send direct email marketing as a result of my submitting the email address (and, to be clear, the ICO takes the, correct, view [pdf] that promotion of a political party meets the PECR, and Data Protection Act, definition of “marketing”). Yet since October last year they have sent me 23 unsolicited emails constituting direct marketing. I complained directly to the Lib Dems, who told me

we have followed the policies we have set out ion [sic] our privacy policy which follow the guidance we have been given by the ICO

which hardly explains how they feel they have complied with their legal obligations, and I will be raising this as a complaint with the ICO. I could take the route of making a claim under regulation 30 of PECR, but this requires that I must have suffered “damage”. By way of comparison, around the same time I also submitted my email address, in circumstances in which I was not consenting to future receipt of email marketing, to other major parties. To their credit, none of the Conservatives, the SNP and the Greens have sent any unsolicited marketing. However, Labour have sent 8 emails, Plaid Cymru 10 and UKIP, the worst offenders, 37 (there is little that is more nauseating, by the way, than receiving an unsolicited email from Nigel Farage addressing one as “Friend”). I rather suspect that consciously or not, some political parties have decided that the risk of legal or enforcement action (and possibly the apparent ambiguity – although really there is none – about the meaning of “consent”) is so low that it is worth adopting a marketing strategy like this. Maybe that’s a sensible act of political pragmatism. But it stinks, and the Lib Dems’ cavalier approach to ePrivacy compliance makes me completely doubt the validity and sincerity of Nick Clegg’s commitment to

enshrine into law our rights as citizens of this country to privacy, to stop information about us being abused online

And, as Pat Walshe noticed the other day, even the Lib Dems’ own website advert inviting support for their proposed Digital Rights Bill has a pre-ticked box (in non-compliance with ICO guidance) for email updates. One final point, I note that clicking on the link in the first paragraph of this post, to the Lib Dems’ announcement of the proposed Bill, opens up, or attempts to open up, a pdf file of a consultation paper. This might just be a coding error, but it’s an odd, and dodgy, piece of script.

The views in this post (and indeed all posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.

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March 27, 2015 · 3:02 pm

Vidal-Hall v Google, and the rise of data protection ambulance-chasing

Everyone knows the concept of ambulance chasers – personal injury lawyers who seek out victims of accidents or negligence to help/persuade the latter to make compensation claims. With today’s judgment in the Court of Appeal in the case of Vidal-Hall & Ors v Google [2015] EWCA Civ 311 one wonders if we will start to see data protection ambulance chasers, arriving at the scene of serious “data breaches” with their business cards.

This is because the Court has made a definitive ruling on the issue, discussed several times previously on this blog, of whether compensation can be claimed under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) in circumstances where a data subject has suffered distress but no tangible, pecuniary damage. Section 13 of the DPA provides that

(1)An individual who suffers damage by reason of any contravention by a data controller of any of the requirements of this Act is entitled to compensation from the data controller for that damage.

(2)An individual who suffers distress by reason of any contravention by a data controller of any of the requirements of this Act is entitled to compensation from the data controller for that distress if—

(a)the individual also suffers damage by reason of the contravention

This differs from the wording of the European Data Protection Directive 95/46/ec, which, at Article 23(1) says

Member States shall provide that any person who has suffered damage as a result of an unlawful processing operation or of any act incompatible with the national provisions adopted pursuant to this Directive is entitled to receive compensation from the controller for the damage suffered

It can be seen that, in the domestic statutory scheme “distress” is distinct from “damage”, but in the Directive, there is just a single category of “damage”. The position until relatively recently, following Johnson v Medical Defence Union [2007] EWCA Civ 262, had been that it meant pecuniary damage, and this in turn meant, as Buxton LJ said in that case, that “section 13 distress damages are only available if damage in the sense of pecuniary loss has been suffered”. So, absent pecuniary damage, no compensation for distress was available (except in certain specific circumstances involving processing of personal data for journalistic, literary or artistic purposes). But, this, said Lord Dyson and Lady Justice Sharp, in a joint judgment, was wrong, and, in any case, they were not bound by Johnson because the relevant remarks in that case were in fact obiter.  In fact, they said, section 13(2) DPA was incompatible with Article 23 of the Directive:

What is required in order to make section 13(2) compatible with EU law is the disapplication of section 13(2), no more and no less. The consequence of this would be that compensation would be recoverable under section 13(1) for any damage suffered as a result of a contravention by a data controller of any of the requirements of the DPA

As Christopher Knight says, in a characteristically fine and exuberant piece on the Panopticon blog, “And thus, section 13(2) was no more”.

And this means a few things. It certainly means that it will be much easier for an aggrieved data subject to bring a claim for compensation against a data controller which has contravened its obligations under the DPA in circumstances where there is little, or no, tangible or pecuniary damage, but only distress. It also means that we may well start to see the rise of data protection ambulance chasers – the DPA may not give rise to massive settlements, but it is a relatively easy claim to make – a contravention is often effectively a matter of fact, or is found to be such by the Information Commissioner, or is conceded/admitted by the data controller – and there is the prospect of group litigation (in 2013 Islington Council settled claims brought jointly by fourteen claimants following disclosure of their personal data to unauthorised third parties – the settlement totalled £43,000).

I mentioned in that last paragraph that data controller sometimes concede or admit to contraventions of their obligations under the DPA. Indeed, they are expected to by the Information Commissioner, and the draft European General Data Protection Regulation proposes to make it mandatory to do so, and to inform data subjects. And this is where I wonder if we might see another effect of the Vidal-Hall case – if data controller know that by owning up to contraventions they may be exposing themselves to multiple legal claims for distress compensation, they (or their shareholders, or insurers) may start to question why they should do this. Breach notification may be seen as even more of a risky exercise than it is now.

There are other interesting aspects to the Vidal-Hall case – misuse of private information is, indeed, a tort, allowing service of the claims against Google outside jurisdiction, and there are profound issues regarding the definition of personal data which are undecided and, if they go to trial, will be extremely important – but the disapplying of section 13(2) DPA looks likely to have profound effects for data controllers, for data subjects, for lawyers and for the landscape of data protection litigation in this country.

The views in this post (and indeed all posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.

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March 25, 2015 · 12:08 pm

A data protection justice gap?

On the 4th March the Supreme Court handed down judgment in the conjoined cases of Catt and T v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis ([2015] UKSC 9). Almost unanimously (there was one dissenting opinion in Catt) the appeals by the Met were allowed. In brief, the judgments held that the retention of historical criminal conviction data was proportionate. But what I thought was particularly interesting was the suggestion (at paragraph 45) by Lord Sumption (described to me recently as “by far the cleverest man in England”) that T‘s claim at least had been unnecessary:

[this] was a straightforward dispute about retention which could have been more appropriately resolved by applying to the Information Commissioner. As it is, the parties have gone through three levels of judicial decision, at a cost out of all proportion to the questions at stake

and as this blog post suggests, there was certainly a hint that costs might flow in future towards those who choose to litigate rather than apply to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

But I think there’s a potential justice gap here. Last year the ICO consulted on changing how it handled concerns from data subjects about handling of their personal data. During the consultation period Dr David Erdos wrote a guest post for this blog, arguing that

The ICO’s suggested approach is hugely problematic from a rule of law point of view. Section 42 of the Data Protection Act [DPA] is crystal clear that “any person who is, or believes himself to be, directly affect by any processing of personal data” may make a request for assessment to the ICO “as to whether it is likely or unlikely that the processing has been or is being carried out in compliance with the provisions” of the Act. On receiving such a request the Commissioner “shall make an assessment” (s. 42 (1)) (emphasis added). This duty is an absolute one

but the ICO’s response to the consultation suggested that

We are…planning to make much greater use of the discretion afforded to us under section 42 of the legislation…so long as a data controller has provided an individual with a clear explanation of their processing of personal information, they are unlikely to need to describe their actions again to us if the matter in question does not appear to us to represent a serious issue or we don’t believe there is an opportunity for the data controller to improve their information rights practice

which is problematic, as section 42 confers a discretion on the ICO only as to the manner in which an assessment shall be made. Section 42(3) describes some matters to which he may have regard in determining the manner, and these include (so are not exhaustive) “the extent to which the request appears to him to raise a matter of substance”. I don’t think “a matter of substance” gets close to being the same as “a serious issue”: a matter can surely be non-serious yet still of substance. So if the discretion afforded to the ICO under section 42 as to the manner of the assessment includes a discretion to rely solely on prior correspondence between the data controller and the data subject, this is not specified in (and can only be inferred from) section 42.

Moreover, and interestingly, Article 28(4) of the European Data Protection Directive, which is transposed in section 42 DPA, confers no such discretion as to the manner of assessment, and this may well have been one of the reasons the European Commission began protracted infraction proceedings against the UK (see Chris Pounder blog posts passim).

Nonetheless, the outcome of the ICO consultation was indeed a new procedure for dealing with data subjects’ concerns. Their website now says

Should I raise my concern with the ICO?

If the organisation has been unable, or unwilling, to resolve your information rights concern, you can raise the matter with us.  We will use the information you have provided, including the organisation’s response to your concerns, to decide if your concern provides an opportunity to improve information rights practice.

If we think it does provide that opportunity, we will take appropriate action

“Improving information rights practice” refers to the ICO’s general duties under section 51 DPA, but what is notable by its absence there, though, is any statement that the ICO’s general duty, under section 42, to make an assessment as to whether it is likely or unlikely that the processing has been or is being carried out in compliance with the provisions of the DPA.

Lord Sumption in Catt (at 34) also said that “Mr Catt could have complained about the retention of his personal data to the Information Commissioner”. This is true, but would the ICO have actually done anything? Would it have represented a “serious issue”? Possibly not  – Lord Sumption describes the background to Mrs T’s complaints as a “minor incident” and the retention of her data as a “straightforward dispute”. But if there are hints from the highest court of the land that bringing judicial review proceedings on data protection matters might results in adverse costs, because a complaint to the ICO is available, and if the ICO, however, shows reluctance to consider complaints and concerns from aggrieved data subjects, is there an issue with access to data protection justice? Is there a privacy justice gap?

The views in this post (and indeed all posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.

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March 5, 2015 · 2:09 pm

Parties, party leaders and data protection registration

UPDATE 24.03.15 The ICO has confirmed to me that none of George Galloway, the Respect Party and Nigel Farage has an entry on the statutory register of data controllers (section 19 of the Data Protection 1998 refers). Might they, therefore, be committing a criminal offence? Natalie Bennett, not being an elected representative, does not necessarily need to register. END UPDATE

George Galloway, the Respect Party, Nigel Farage and Natalie Bennett all appear not to have an entry in the ICO’s online register of data controllers. Failure to have an entry in the actual register constitutes a criminal offence if no exemption can be claimed.

I’ve written before on the subject of politicians and notification under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). To recap:

Section 17 of the DPA states in broad terms that a data controller (a person who solely or jointly “determines the purposes for which and the manner in which any personal data are, or are to be, processed”) must not process personal data unless “an entry in respect of the data controller is included in the register maintained by the [Information] Commissioner” (IC) or unless a relevant exemption to registration applies. Accordingly (under section 18) a relevant data controller must make a notification to the IC stating (again in broad terms) what data it is processing and for what purposes, and must pay a fee of either £35 or £500 (depending on the size of the organisation which is the controller). Section 19 describes the register itself and also provides that registration lasts for twelve months, after which a renewed notification must be made, with payment of a further fee.

Section 21 creates an offence the elements of which will be made out if a data controller who cannot claim an exemption processes personal data without an entry being made in the register. Thus, if a data controller processes personal data and has not notified the IC either initially or at the point of renewal, that controller will be likely to have committed a criminal offence (there is a defence if the controller can show that he exercised all due diligence to comply with the duty).

Political parties, and members of parliaments process personal data (for instance of their constituents) in the role of data controller, and cannot avail themselves of an exemption. Thus, they have an obligation to register, and thus it is, for example, that the Prime Minister has this entry in the register

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and so it is that Stuart Agnew, UKIP Member of the European Parliament, has this entry

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and so it is that the Liberal Democrats have this entry

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(all the entries have more information in them than those screenshots show).

But, as I have written before, not all politicians appear to comply with these legal obligations under the DPA. And this morning I noticed lawyer Adam Rose tweeting about the fact that neither George Galloway MP, nor his Respect Party appeared to have an entry on the IC register. This certainly seems to be the case, and I took the opportunity to ask Mr Galloway whether it was correct (no response as yet). It is also worth noting that back in 2012 the IC stated that

it appears that the Respect Party has not notified under the DPA at any time since its formation in November 2004….[this has] been brought to the attention of our Non-Notification Team within our Enforcement Department. They will therefore consider what further action is appropriate in the circumstances

It must be born in mind, however, that non-appearance on the online searchable register is not proof of non-appearance on the actual register. The IC says

It is updated daily. However, due to peaks of work it may be some time before new notifications, renewals and amendments appear in the public register. Please note data controllers are deemed notified from the date we receive a valid form and fee. Therefore the fact that an entry does not appear on the public register does not mean that the data controller is committing a criminal offence

Nonetheless, the online register is there for a purpose – it enables data subjects to get reassurance that those who process their personal data do so lawfully. Non-appearance on the online register is at least cause for concern and the need for clarification from the IC and/or the data controller.

And it is not just Mr Galloway and the Respect Party who don’t appear on the online register. I checked for registrations for some of the other main party leaders: David Cameron, Ed(ward) Miliband and Nick Clegg all have registrations, as do Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Robinson, but Nigel Farage, Leader of UKIP and Natalie Bennett, Leader of the Green Party appear not to.

At all times, but especially in the run up to the general election, voters and constituents have a right to have their personal information handled lawfully, and a right to reassurances from politicians that they will do so. For this reason, it would be good to have clarification from Mr Galloway, the Respect Party, Mr Farage and Ms Bennett, as to why they have no entry showing in the IC’s online register. And if they do not have an entry in the register itself, it would be good to have clarification from the IC as to what action might be taken.

The views in this post (and indeed all posts on this blog) are my personal ones, and do not represent the views of any organisation I am involved with.

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