ICO scolds UK councils: GDPR is coming. Are you ready? Pop quiz says you're not Councils in the UK have work to do ahead of the EU's General Data Protection Regulations, according to the Information Commissioner's Office's department for good practice. The survey, which was conducted at the end of last year, quizzed 173 councils and found that many were not prepared for the more stringent data regime, …
Would this the same ICO that has been telling us for years that there's a three month cut-off for us to submit a complaint about a company's data processing under Section 42 of the DPA but has only just admitted that there is no cut-off? How many thousands of complaints have they managed to dismiss over the years with this bogus cut-off rule?
Does your council maintain a corporate log / register of information security breaches?
153 (88.4%)
Yes
20 (11.6%)
No
The 20 councils that answered 'No' need their collective nuts roasting over an open fire. That might focus their minds on a new 'To Do' list.
...to the huge number of private sector companies who don't think that the Data Protection Act applies to them at all, or that it only applies to computer records?
Last year I submitted a Subject Access Request to a UK energy supplier who wrote back (after three months) that they did not have to supply the information as they were not a public sector company. A letter from the ICO changed their mind... Sad to say that was not the first nor the last time I have had that experience, just the biggest.
Councils are only staffing data protection officer roles because it's a statutory responsibility - councils have been eliminating discretionary spending as their budgets have shrivelled. Even then, the officer(s) concerned is/are likely time-sharing with other responsibilities. Not much time for jobsworthian activity in your local council for several years now, unless it's revenue-generating, like traffic cameras.
"councils have been eliminating discretionary spending as their budgets have shrivelled."
They still find money to fund events such as the Tour de France and its bastard offspring the Tour de Yorkshire. Of course those earn column inches for the senior councillors. If only the local paper had asked the council leader for a quote every time something closed and put his photo alongside it, whether he replied or not, we might have had more libraries still open.
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