All power to the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas who has instigated a fresh prosecution for offences against the Data Protection Act. Despite lack of resources, he has been resolute in bringing such prosecutions where he can, when he stands a chance of seeing a conviction.

Ian Kerr operates an organisation innocuously called the Consulting Agency which trades in personal, sometimes very long term personal information about British construction workers – particularly any items that might indicate a tendency to combat malpractice and injustice to members of the workforce.

Two days ago in Macclesfield Magistrates’ Court Kerr pleaded guilty to colluding with construction companies to contravene the clear requirements of the DPA 1998, ignoring the privacy rights of thousands of individuals. Holding people’s personal details without their knowledge is deemed a serious breach of the Act. The case now goes up to the Crown Court.

What is less heartening is the government’s attitude to strengthening a law which is becoming increasingly important as larger quantities of data are collected and digitally stored – especially at a time when we are seeing terabytes of information being illicitly extracted from the parliamentary Fees Office and broadcast to the world. Although you, along with every hack in the land, may argue that in this case, there is a profound public interest, I’m not so sure, for reasons I gave in a post on May 19th http://www.peterburden.net/archives/142

Leaving that aspect aside, though, I have also pointed out more than once that last year the government tried to beef up the penalties for crimes against the DPA by inserting a clause into a Criminal Justice Bill. They wanted contraventions to become punishable by a prison sentence, rather than, as currently, by just a fine, which would anyway nearly always be paid by the offender’s employer.  But just before the final reading, they were heavily lobbied by Paul Dacre of the Mail and Murdoch’s people at News International – of whom they are jabberingly terrified – kowtowed and dropped it.

This was soon after the papers had shrugged off a deeply alarming report on the ICO’s investigation into the ‘Dark Arts’ of the British Press, in which the Information Commissioner clearly identified relentless and large scale illegal use of private investigators phone tapping, buying information from the police, raiding government agency databases and passing the information back to journalists. The evidence was incontrovertible, there was a stack of prosecutions waiting to happen, but the ICO simply did not have the resources to follow up what would have been highly contested prosecutions. It was almost farcical, and the hacks must have been laughing their heads of behind their hands, as they promised not to do it any more, and within a few months were all at it again.

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