HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is a
non-departmental public body In the United Kingdom, non-departmental public body (NDPB) is a classification applied by the Cabinet Office, Treasury, the Scottish Government, and the Northern Ireland Executive to public sector organisations that have a role in the process o ...
which reports directly to the
Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace ...
and is sponsored by the
Department for Science, Innovation and Technology The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) is a ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom. It was established on 7 February 2023 by a cabinet reshuffle under the Rishi Sunak premiership. The departm ...
. It is the independent regulatory office ( national data protection authority) dealing with the
Data Protection Act 2018 The Data Protection Act 2018 (c. 12) is a United Kingdom act of Parliament (UK) which updates data protection laws in the UK. It is a national law which complements the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and replaces the D ...
and the
General Data Protection Regulation The General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679), abbreviated GDPR, is a European Union regulation on information privacy in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). The GDPR is an important component of ...
, the
Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 is a law in the United Kingdom which made it unlawful to, amongst other things, transmit an automated recorded message for direct marketing purposes via a telephone, without ...
across the UK; and the
Freedom of Information Act 2000 The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (c. 36) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that creates a public right of access to information held by public authorities. It is the implementation of freedom of information legislation in t ...
and the
Environmental Information Regulations 2004 The Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR), UK Statutory Instrument SI 2004 No. 3391, provide a statutory right of access to environmental information held by UK public authorities. The regulations came into force on 1 January 2005. ...
in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and, to a limited extent, in Scotland. When they audit an organisation they use Symbiant's audit software.


Role of the Information Commissioner

The Information Commissioner is an independent official appointed by
the Crown The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive ...
. The Commissioner's decisions are subject to appeal to an independent
tribunal A tribunal, generally, is any person or institution with authority to judge, adjudicate on, or determine claims or disputes—whether or not it is called a tribunal in its title. For example, an advocate who appears before a court with a singl ...
and the
courts A court is an institution, often a government entity, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and administer justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law. Courts gene ...
. The Commissioner's mission is to "uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals". The role of Information Commissioner is currently held by
John Edwards Johnny Reid Edwards (born June 10, 1953) is an American lawyer and former politician who represented North Carolina in the United States Senate from 1999 to 2005. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the vice presidential nominee under ...
, who succeeded Elizabeth Denham on 3 January 2022.


John Edwards

On 26 August 2021, John Edwards was named as the new Information Commissioner, replacing Elizabeth Denham. The UK government said he would "go beyond the regulator's traditional role" and that the job would now be "balanced" between protecting rights and promoting "innovation and economic growth". It also said that protection for privacy should be done "in as light a touch way as possible", that it would prioritise allowing personal data to be sent internationally to places such as the United States, Korea, Singapore, Dubai and Colombia, among others, that it wanted a data policy that delivered a "Brexit dividend" for businesses (cf. individuals alone) and that it wanted to get rid of "endless" cookie popups. Promoting economic growth is not one of the ICO's functions recognised at law and as such this new role creates the potential for conflict with its statutory functions, set out for example in section 115 of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK GDPR, and/or the risk that it may potentially take actions which are
ultra vires ('beyond the powers') is a Latin phrase used in law to describe an act that requires legal authority but is done without it. Its opposite, an act done under proper authority, is ('within the powers'). Acts that are may equivalently be termed ...
. Since promoting economic growth has not previously been one of its roles (it was announced on 26 August 2021 that it is something that the job would "now" involve and it is not set out in statute), then logically, promoting economic growth is to come at the expense of the protection of rights, since that protection has not previously been balanced with it. , the ICO's website states that it is "The UK's independent authority set up to uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals".


Elizabeth Denham

Since Elizabeth Denham was appointed Britain's Information Commissioner in 2016, the ICO has undertaken high-profile investigations into Equifax, Yahoo, Talk Talk, Uber, and Facebook; issuing the maximum fine under the Data Protection Act 1998 of £500,000 to Facebook, for breaches of data protection law. Denham has also overseen the conclusion of the ICO's investigation into charities' fundraising activities and a series of fines for companies behind nuisance marketing. Elizabeth Denham welcomed the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that came into effect in May 2018, as well as the Data Protection Act 2018. In October 2018 she was elected chair of the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners (ICDPPC), the leading global forum of data protection and privacy authorities, encompassing more than 120 members across all continents that works throughout the year on global data protection policy issues.


Christopher Graham

During his time as Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham was noted for gaining new powers to issue monetary penalties to those who breach the Data Protection Act 1998. He has also welcomed new powers to issue monetary penalties under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, as well as raising concerns over harm and distress caused by nuisance call to the public. Christopher Graham succeeded Richard Thomas in 2009.


Richard Thomas

During Richard Thomas' tenure as Commissioner, the ICO was particularly noted for raising serious concerns over the Government's proposed British national identity card and database, as well as other similar databases such as the
Citizen Information Project In the United Kingdom, the Citizen Information Project (CIP) was a plan by the Office for National Statistics to build a national population register. On 18 April 2006 it was announced that instead of continuing as a separate project, it would be ...
,
Universal Child Database ContactPoint was a government database in England that provided a way for those working with children and young people to find out who else is working with the same child or young person, making it easier to deliver more coordinated support. I ...
, and the
NHS National Programme for IT The NHS Connecting for Health (CFH) agency was part of the UK Department of Health and was formed on 1 April 2005, having replaced the former NHS Information Authority. It was part of the Department of Health Informatics Directorate, with the r ...
, stating that the country is in danger of sleepwalking into a surveillance society, drawing attention to the misuse of such information by the former states of the
Eastern bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...
and
Francisco Franco Francisco Franco Bahamonde (born Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general and dictator who led the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalist forces i ...
's
Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
.


Data Protection Act 2018

The Data Protection Act 2018 received
royal assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in othe ...
on 23 May 2018. It updates data protection laws in the UK, supplementing the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), implementing the EU law enforcement directive, and extending data protection laws to areas not covered by the GDPR. The new Act aims to modernise data protection laws to ensure they are effective in the years to come. The data protection charge on UK data controllers to support the Act is under the Data Protection (Charges and Information) Regulations 2018. Exemptions from the charge were left broadly the same as for the previous Act: largely some businesses and non-profits internal core purposes (staff or members, marketing and accounting), household affairs, some public purposes, and non-automated processing. The register of fee payers, which excludes those data controllers that are exempt from paying a fee, is publicly available and searchable at the website of the ICO, which also gives links to the ICO's counterparts around
Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
.


Data Protection Act 1998

The United Kingdom as a member of the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
was, and as a former member still is, subject to a strict regime of
data protection Data protection may refer to: * Information privacy, also known as data privacy * Data security {{Authority control ...
. The
Data Protection Act 1984 The Data Protection Act 1998 (c. 29) (DPA) was an act of Parliament of the United Kingdom designed to protect personal data stored on computers or in an organised paper filing system. It enacted provisions from the European Union (EU) Data Pro ...
created the post then named ''Data Protection Registrar'' with whom people processing personal data had to register the fact of their processing of that data on the register of data controllers. Under the provisions of EC Directive 95/46 (introduced in the UK as the
Data Protection Act 1998 The Data Protection Act 1998 (c. 29) (DPA) was an act of Parliament of the United Kingdom designed to protect personal data stored on computers or in an organised paper filing system. It enacted provisions from the European Union (EU) Data Pr ...
, rather than as an SI under the European Communities Act 1972), the name of the post was changed to ''Data Protection Commissioner'' and later to ''Information Commissioner''.


General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a new, Europe-wide law that replaces the Data Protection Act 1998 in the UK. The GDPR came into force on 25 May 2018 and sets out requirements for how organisations need to handle personal data. It forms part of the data protection regime in the UK, together with the new Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018). Following the UK's departure from the EU on 31 January 2020, the GDPR continues to be part of British domestic law by virtue of section 3 of the
European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (c. 16) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to repeal the European Communities Act 1972, and for parliamentary approval to be required for any withdrawal agreement negotiated between th ...
.


Freedom of Information Act 2000 and Environmental Information Regulations 2004

In 2005 the Commissioner's role was expanded to include enforcement of the
Freedom of Information Act 2000 The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (c. 36) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that creates a public right of access to information held by public authorities. It is the implementation of freedom of information legislation in t ...
and
Environmental Information Regulations 2004 The Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR), UK Statutory Instrument SI 2004 No. 3391, provide a statutory right of access to environmental information held by UK public authorities. The regulations came into force on 1 January 2005. ...
and the name of the position was changed from Data Protection Commissioner to Information Commissioner ('IC'). Enforcement of the
Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (asp 13) was an Act of the Scottish Parliament passed in 2002. It covers public bodies over which the Scottish Parliament has jurisdiction, fulfilling a similar purpose to the UK-level Freedom of Inf ...
, which applies to
devolved Devolution is the statutory delegation of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to govern at a subnational level, such as a regional or local level. It is a form of administrative decentralization. Devolved territories ...
public authorities in Scotland, is the responsibility of the
Scottish Information Commissioner The Scottish Information Commissioner () is responsible for the promotion and enforcement of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) and thEnvironmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004Scottish EIRs). The current Scottish In ...
, a separate public official, as the British Act does not apply to these authorities. The ICO issues guidance on Freedom of Information legislation, which is being updated in accordance with its strategic plan 2019/20 - 2021/22, ''Openness by Design''.


Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (EC Directive) 2003 (PECR)

In November 2011 the ICO was given the powers to impose monetary penalties of up to £500,000 for breaches of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). PECR applies to organisations that wish to send marketing messages through electronic means i.e. phone, fax, email, text; use cookies or provide electronic communication services to the general public. As with the GDPR, these regulations continue to apply following Brexit.


Nuisance calls

In March 2013, commenting on a fine of £90,000 imposed on
Cumbernauld Cumbernauld (; ) is a large town in the Shires of Scotland, historic county of Dunbartonshire and council area of North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is the tenth List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, most-populous locality in Scotl ...
fitted kitchen company DM Design for nuisance marketing calls, the Information Commissioner said that "this fine will not be an isolated penalty. We know other companies are showing a similar disregard for the law and we've every intention of taking further enforcement action against companies that continue to bombard people with unlawful marketing texts and calls." In 2014, the Government changed the law to "lower the legal threshold for consumer harm". This made it easier for the ICO to "take enforcement action against more organisations breaching the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR)". In October 2018 the ICO fined two companies a total of £250,000 that made nearly 1.73 million direct marketing phone calls to people registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS). In December 2018, the Commissioner welcomed the new law that means the ICO can now hold company bosses directly responsible and has the power to fine them personally for breaches of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR).


Environmental Information Regulations 2004

The Information Commissioner is also responsible for appeals made under the
Environmental Information Regulations 2004 The Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR), UK Statutory Instrument SI 2004 No. 3391, provide a statutory right of access to environmental information held by UK public authorities. The regulations came into force on 1 January 2005. ...
.


Enforcement

Prior to 2010 the enforcement powers were limited to issuing enforcement notices and to pursuing those alleged to have broken the Data Protection Act 1998 through the courts. In 2010 The Information Commissioner was granted the power to issue fines, known as monetary penalties, by its own authority, granted in April 2010. The first such were served on 24 November 2010. From 2010, the ICO were also given the powers to serve Assessment Notices, which can be issued to organisations who are unwilling to work alongside the ICO and are at risk of breaking the principles of the Data Protection Act 1998. During the
Leveson Inquiry The Leveson Inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices, and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011. A serie ...
in 2012 it came to light that the ICO had felt unable to challenge the press related to allegations of breaches due to the power of the press and perceived weakness of its own powers. From 25 May 2018 the ICO were granted new enforcement powers under the new data protection laws, including the ability to fine organisations €20 million (or equivalent in sterling) or 4% of the total annual worldwide turnover in the preceding financial year, whichever is higher, for breaching data protection laws.


Investigations


Operation Motorman

In 2002, under 'Operation Motorman', the ICO under Richard Thomas raided various newspaper and private investigators' offices, looking for details of personal information kept on unregistered computer databases. The operation uncovered numerous invoices addressed to newspapers and magazines, which detailed prices for providing the journalists with personal information, with 305 journalists being identified as having been the recipients of a wide range of information. In 2006, a request under the
Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request: * Freedom of Information Act (United States) of 1966 * F ...
led to the publication of a report to the
British Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of ...
called "What Price Privacy Now?". The newspaper with the highest number of requests was the ''
Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily Middle-market newspaper, middle-market Tabloid journalism, tabloid conservative newspaper founded in 1896 and published in London. , it has the List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation, h ...
'' with 952 transactions by 58 journalists; the ''
News of the World The ''News of the World'' was a weekly national "Tabloid journalism#Red tops, red top" Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published every Sunday in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the world's highest-selling ...
'' came fifth in the table, with 182 transactions from 19 journalists. The ''Daily Mail'' immediately issued a press release, in which it rejected the accusations within the report. Editor Paul Dacre said that
Associated Newspapers DMG Media (stylised in lowercase) is an intermediate holding company for Associated Newspapers, Northcliffe Media, Harmsworth Printing, Harmsworth Media and other subsidiaries of Daily Mail and General Trust. It is based at 9 Derry Street in ...
only used private investigators to confirm public information, such as dates of birth. In a July 2011 appearance in front of a parliamentary committee, a day after former
News International News Corp UK & Ireland Limited (trading as News UK, formerly News International and NI Group) is a List of newspapers in the United Kingdom, British newspaper publisher, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the American mass media Conglomerate (c ...
CEO
Rebekah Brooks Rebekah Mary Brooks (; born 27 May 1968) is a British media executive and former journalist and newspaper editor. She has been chief executive officer of News UK since 2015. She was previously CEO of News International from 2009 to 2011 and was ...
had been arrested and bailed in light of the
News International phone hacking scandal Beginning in the 1990s, and going as far until its shutdown in 2011, employees of the now-defunct newspaper ''News of the World'' engaged in phone hacking, police bribery, and exercising improper influence in the pursuit of stories. Investi ...
, Dacre told them that he had never "countenanced" phone hacking or blagging at his newspaper, as both acts were clearly "criminal".


Consulting Association

On 23 February 2009, the Droitwich office of the
Consulting Association The Consulting Association (TCA) was an UK business (described by its key figure as "a non-profit making, unincorporated trade association"), based in Droitwich, which, from 1993 to 2009, maintained a database of British construction workers an ...
(TCA) was raided by the ICO, which served an enforcement notice against TCA under the terms of the Data Protection Act. The ICO action followed a 28 June 2008 article about alleged
blacklist Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list; if people are on a blacklist, then they are considere ...
ing in the construction industry, by journalist Phil Chamberlain, published in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
''.


Sony

In 2013, the Information Commissioner's Office fined Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd. £250,000, when many PlayStation systems were hacked and the names, addresses, phone numbers and card details of users were stolen. The ICO found that Sony had excessive information about their users and inadequate security systems in place.


Facial recognition use by Amazon and Facebook

May 2018 saw the increased scrutiny of both
Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
and
Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology company * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek myth ...
with regards to reports of the use of biometric personal data without the consent of the subjects.


Cambridge Analytica and Facebook

On 23 March 2018, the ICO searched the
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
headquarters of
Cambridge Analytica Cambridge Analytica Ltd. (CA), previously known as SCL USA, was a British political consulting firm that came to prominence through the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal. It was started in 2013, as a subsidiary of the private intell ...
amid reports that the firm harvested the personal data of millions of
Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
users as part of a campaign to influence the U.S. 2016 presidential elections. In October 2018 the ICO issued a fine of £500,000, the maximum allowable under the laws which applied at the time the incidents occurred, to Facebook, for breaches of data protection law. The ICO's investigation found that between 2007 and 2014, Facebook processed the personal information of users unfairly by allowing application developers (specifically, Aleksandr Kogan and his company GSR as clients of SCL Ltd and Cambridge Analytica) access to their information without sufficiently clear and informed consent, and allowing access even if users had not downloaded the app, but were simply 'friends' with people who had.


Uber

In November 2018 the ICO fined
Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. is an American multinational transportation company that provides Ridesharing company, ride-hailing services, courier services, food delivery, and freight transport. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California, a ...
£385,000 for failing to protect customers' personal information during a cyber-attack. A series of avoidable data security flaws allowed the personal details of around 2.7 million British customers to be accessed and downloaded by attackers from a cloud-based storage system operated by Uber's US parent company.


Equifax

In September 2018, the ICO issued Equifax Ltd with a £500,000 fine for failing to protect the personal information of up to 15 million British citizens during a cyber-attack in 2017. The incident, which happened between 13 May and 30 July 2017 in the US, affected 146 million customers globally.


TikTok

In February 2019, the ICO launched an investigation of the video-sharing platform and mobile application
TikTok TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...
, following the fine its parent company
ByteDance ByteDance Ltd. is a Chinese internet technology company headquartered in Haidian, Beijing, and incorporated in the Cayman Islands. Founded by Zhang Yiming, Liang Rubo, and a team of others in 2012, ByteDance developed the video-sharing ap ...
received from the United States'
Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) United States antitrust law, antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. It ...
, for collecting information from minors under the age of 13 in violation of the country's
Children's Online Privacy Protection Act The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) is a United States federal law The law of the United States comprises many levels of Codification (law), codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is ...
. Speaking to a parliamentary committee, Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said that the investigation focuses on the same issue of private data collection, as well as the kind of videos collected and shared by children online, as well as the platform's open messaging system which allows any adult to message any child. She noted that the company was potentially violating provisions in the GDPR which "requires the company to provide different services and different protections for children".


Interserve

In October 2022, Interserve was fined £4.4 million for a breach of data protection law in May 2020 which enabled hackers to access data on up to 113,000 Interserve employees. While a phishing email had been detected, the ICO said Interserve "failed to thoroughly investigate the suspicious activity". As a result, the attacker compromised 283 systems and 16 accounts, uninstalled the company's anti-virus solution, and encrypted the personal data of current and former employees. Interserve disputed that its staff and its response had been complacent. It said it had also sought to reduce risks in systems supporting ongoing operations at Tilbury Douglas and in Mitie Group. The fine was the fourth-largest ever demanded by the ICO.


List of Information Commissioners

*
John Edwards Johnny Reid Edwards (born June 10, 1953) is an American lawyer and former politician who represented North Carolina in the United States Senate from 1999 to 2005. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the vice presidential nominee under ...
(appointed 21 December 2021, took office 3 January 2022) * Elizabeth Denham (appointed 15 July 2016) * Christopher Graham (appointed 29 June 2009) * Richard Thomas (appointed 2 December 2002) * Elizabeth France (appointed 1 September 1994) * Eric Howe (appointed September 1984)


Similar roles in Europe

The role of the IC is mirrored throughout the countries of the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
and
European Economic Area The European Economic Area (EEA) was established via the ''Agreement on the European Economic Area'', an international agreement which enables the extension of the European Union's single market to member states of the European Free Trade Asso ...
who have equivalent officials created under their versions of Directive 95/46.


See also

*
Information privacy Information privacy is the relationship between the collection and dissemination of data, technology, the public expectation of privacy, contextual information norms, and the legal and political issues surrounding them. It is also known as dat ...
* Information commissioner *
Departments of the United Kingdom Government The Government of the United Kingdom is divided into departments that each have responsibility, according to the government, for putting government policy into practice. There are currently 24 ministerial departments, 20 non-ministerial departm ...
*
Privacy International Privacy International (PI) is a UK-based registered charity that defends and promotes the right to privacy across the world. First formed in 1990, registered as a non-profit company in 2002 and as a charity in 2012, PI is based in London. Its ...
* The United Kingdom Office of Communications (Ofcom) * The United Kingdom Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) * The United Kingdom Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat) *
Telephone Preference Service The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is the United Kingdom's official do not call list. It allows businesses and individuals to opt out of unsolicited marketing calls. Similar do not call lists are implemented in other countries, such as the ...
* Data Protection Commissioner (Ireland) * :Databases in the United Kingdom * Operation Motorman (ICO investigation)


References


External links

* {{authority control Borough of Cheshire East Data protection authorities Freedom of information in the United Kingdom Information technology organisations based in the United Kingdom Department for Science, Innovation and Technology Non-departmental public bodies of the United Kingdom government Organisations based in Cheshire Organizations established in 1984 Regulators of the United Kingdom Science and technology in Cheshire 1984 establishments in the United Kingdom