The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has issued reprimands to seven organisations for repeatedly failing to respond to Subject Access Requests (SAR) within the legal timeframe. With one exception, all the infringing organisations come from the public sector.
The names and details (view link) behind each of the reprimand are as follows:
- Ministry of Defence (MoD)
- Home Office
- London Borough of Croydon
- Kent Police
- London Borough of Hackney
- London Borough of Lambeth
- Virgin Media
In addition to the SAR failings, two of the organisations were issued an FOI practice recommendation:
In a statement, Information Commissioner John Edwards said: "SARs and requests made under FOIA are fundamental rights and are an essential gateway to accessing other rights. Being able to ask an organisation "what information do you hold on me?" and "how it is being used?" provides transparency and accountability and allows the person to ask for changes to be made or even for the information to be deleted."
In a related post, Jon Baines, Napdo Chairman and Senior Data Protection Specialist at Mischon de Reya, commended the actions taken by the ICO, particularly following early comments from John Edwards relating to issuing monetary penalties.
Earlier in the week, the ICO published a blog offering tips for processing SARs in a timely fashion.
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