ICO 'too scared' to clobber press for data breaches A senior investigator for the Information Commissioner's Office has told the Leveson inquiry he was warned off pursuing the press for data breaches by his bosses. Alexander Owen, also a former police officer, had been looking into possible breaches of the Data Protection Act by a south London private investigation agency when …
More a case of the almighty finger from above pointing at the manager in question and saying 'its you (that started this and will now bw scapegoated and hung out to dry even though you were right)'
Private companies fight back
In my experienc, the public sector scapegoats someone disowns them, blames them for everything including cancer, world hunger and the hole in the ozone layer and then trots out the lines 'We were well aware of xxx but Mr xxx decided to ignore it/show initiative etc'
As I've posted on a number of other articles... the ICO bullies government funded organisations - handing out fines here and there, because it's an easy win for them. But when it comes to the private sector, they shy away from taking any action because they don't want to be exposed by the companies lawyers and perhaps not having a full grasp of the law.
As an example, in a recent response from the ICO their policy department told me that a company has a right to send me direct marketing because they need to earn revenue from the advertising and I accepted their terms. But after seeking clarification, they admitted that a) how a company earns its revenue is not the concern of the ICO, and b) a company cannot use civil law to deny me of a statutory right - and I have a statutory right under section 11 of the DPA98 not to receive direct marketing from an organistion. After this embarrassing reversal they refused to discuss the matter further with me so now I have had to escalate the matter to a Parliamentary Ombudsman.
This kind of inconsistancy is rife at the ICO and I believe that they opt to pick on government agencies to avoid having to deal with lawyers representing companies. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would have been had the ICO told the solicitors of a large organisation that they have a right to earn revenue by advertising to data subjects when they actually have no right whatsoever? And this actually came from the ICO's policy team?
webmaster@mindmydata.co.uk
News of the Screws knew that they where telling porkies when they said the hacking was down to a rogue Reporter
The Police knew that News of the Screws where telling porkies when they said the hacking was down to a rogue Reporter.
The ICO knew that News of the Screws where telling porkies when they said the hacking was down to a rogue Reporter.
The only people who didn't know where the people being hacked, the general public, oh and apparently James Murdoch and his Dad.
In stead of sucking up to these Media Barons, the MP's should have been hauling them off to the Tower of London.
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