Non Notification Team

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Dear Information Commissioner’s Office,
I am writing to request information about MPs and data protection notification.

Please could you provide a list of current MPs who have failed to notify with the ICO as data controllers (in their capacity as MPs).

Please could you also provide a summary of the steps the non notification team will follow in respect of the MPs who have not notified.

I would be grateful if you could indicate time scales e.g. date of final reminder, date when penalty/fine will be incurred.

Yours faithfully,

Mr J. Cross

Information Commissioner's Office

Link: [1]File-List

5th September 2011

Reference: IRQ0414217

Dear Mr Cross,

Request for Information

Thank you for your correspondence of 4^th September 2011.

Your request is being dealt with in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.  We will respond by 30^th September 2011 which is
20 working days from the day after we received your request.

Should you wish to reply to this email, please be careful not to amend the
information in the ‘subject’ field. This will ensure that the
information is added directly to your case. However, please be aware that
this is an automated process; the information will not be read by a member
of our staff until your case is allocated to a request handler.

Yours sincerely

Hannah Burling

Lead Internal Compliance Officer

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Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

References

Visible links
1. file:///tmp/radF10CB_files/filelist.xml

Information Commissioner's Office

1 Attachment

Link: [1]File-List

28 September 2011

 

Case Reference Number IRQ0414217

 

Dear Mr Cross

 

 

I am writing further to our email of 05 September 2011, in which we
acknowledged your request for information to the Information
CommissionerÂ’s Office (ICO).

 

We have dealt with your request in accordance with your ‘right to know’
under section 1(1) of FOIA, which entitles you to be provided with a copy
of any information ‘held’ by a public authority, unless an appropriate
exemption applies.

 

In your email you requested

 

“a list of current MPs who have failed to notify with the ICO as data
controllers (in their capacity as MPs)”.

 

In addition, you asked for

 

“a summary of the steps the non notification team will follow in respect
of the MPs who have not notified. I would be grateful if you could
indicate time scales e.g. date of final reminder, date when penalty/fine
will be incurred”.

 

 

In response, I can firstly confirm that we do not hold a list of current
of MPÂ’s who have failed to notify. We do not hold a current list of MPÂ’s
and therefore naturally do not hold a list of current MPÂ’s who have not
notified. However, we currently hold registrations for 606 Data
Controllers who indicated that they were MPÂ’s.

 

It might be useful if I provide some assistance by way of background
explanation. Following the 2010 General Election, the ICO carried out a
notification check on all MPÂ’s and contacted those MPÂ’s that didnÂ’t
have a current notification (at the time) to make sure they were aware of
the need to register. To aid this project we accessed the list of MPÂ’s
that is provided at:

 

[2]http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-o...

The aim of the initiative was primarily to ensure the newer MPÂ’s were
aware of their responsibilities with regards to the Notification process.
We reached a point where we were satisfied this aim had been achieved,
which was reflected by the numbers of MPÂ’s being Notified.

I am aware that you have made a previous request to the ICO regarding the
non notification of MP’s. Within that response, we advised 

“Our non notification team are still in the process of contacting
recently elected MP’s to ensure they are aware of the need to notify”.

It appears that this statement was erroneous and I apologise for any
inconvenience caused. As I have explained above, the specific initiative
for checking MPÂ’s notification entries was completed last year. It
appears there may have been some confusion in distinguishing between the
more general work carried out to ensure notification, and the specific
project surrounding MPÂ’s. Once again, please accept my apologies for this
ambiguity.

 

You have also asked that we provide “a summary of the steps the non
notification team will follow in respect of the MPs who have not
notified”.

 

 

As with any organisation/individual who we suspect may need to notify, our
non notification process is to write to them asking for their comments
and advise them to consider their need to notify. If the entity registers
or provides a suitable explanation as to why registration is not required
then that is usually the end of the matter and no further action is taken.

 

If no response (or an inadequate response) is forthcoming then we write
again explaining the requirement to notify and advising that failure to
respond may result in the matter being passed to our legal team for
consideration of prosecution.

 

If there is still no response then the file is passed over for the legal
team to consider the evidence and if they think there is sufficient
evidence they will write advising that if no registration is received
within 14 days or representations made as to why a prosecution should not
be carried out then a summons will be issued. 

If registration is then forthcoming then that is the end of the matter and
no further action is taken. Prosecution is usually the last resort when
all else fails and we do give ample opportunity for the data controller to
register. The legal team are not currently considering any MPÂ’s for
prosecution.

 

 

Although we do not hold a list of MPÂ’s who are not currently notified,
the public register can be accessed via the following link:

[3]http://www.ico.gov.uk/ESDWebPages/search...

In addition, as referenced above, the following website provides a current
list of MPÂ’s:

[4]http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-o...

It is therefore possible to cross reference the two links to establish if
any current MPÂ’s are not registered.

 

 

I do hope this response is useful. If you are dissatisfied with the
response you have received and wish to request a review of our decision or
make a complaint about how your request has been handled you should write
to the Internal Compliance Team at the address below or e-mail
[5][email address]

 

Your request for internal review should be submitted to us within 40
working days of receipt by you of this response.  Any such request
received after this time will only be considered at the discretion of the
Commissioner.

 

If having exhausted the review process you are not content that your
request or review has been dealt with correctly, you have a further right
of appeal to this office in our capacity as the statutory complaint
handler under the legislation.  To make such an application, please write
to the Case Reception Team, at the address below or visit the
‘Complaints’ section of our website to make a Freedom of Information Act
or Environmental Information Regulations complaint online.

 

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

 

 

Andrew Walsh

Lead Internal Compliance Officer

Information CommissionerÂ’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

T. 01625 545363  [6]www.ico.gov.uk

 

 

 

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Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

References

Visible links
1. file:///tmp/radB638D_files/filelist.xml
2. http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-o...
3. http://www.ico.gov.uk/ESDWebPages/search...
4. http://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-o...
5. mailto:[email address]
6. blocked::http://www.ico.gov.uk/
http://www.ico.gov.uk/

Dear Information Commissioner’s Office,

You stated that: "...we currently hold registrations for 606 Data Controllers who indicated that they were MP’s."

Please could you at least provide me with the list of the names 606 who are registered in an Excel spreadsheet.

When I search the public register for MP I get the following messages:

"More than 100 registrations found.
Please try again, this time narrowing your search criteria."

It is not reasonably practical given the constraints of the search system you offer for me to construct a list of MPs who have registered myself as it would mean carrying out searches on about 650 people and consider alternative names they may have registered under.

Finally, could you confirm that the ICO suspects around 44 MPs of continuing to illegal process constituency case work but plans to take no action?

Yours faithfully,

John Cross

Thank you for emailing the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).  This
is an automatic acknowledgement to tell you we have received your email
safely.  Please do not reply to this email.

 

If your email was about a new complaint or request for advice it will be
considered by our Customer Contact Department.  One of our case officers
will be in touch as soon as possible. 

 

If your email was about an ongoing case we are dealing with it will be
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If your email was about a case you have already submitted, but is yet to
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If you require any further assistance please contact our Helpline on 0303
123 1133 or 01625 545745 if you prefer to use a national rate number.

 

Thank you for contacting the Information Commissioner’s Office

 

Yours sincerely

 

ICO Customer Contact Department

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Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

Information Commissioner's Office

Link: [1]File-List

07 October 2011

 

Case Reference Number IRQ0414217

 

Dear Mr Cross

 

Thank you for your email of 03 October 2011.

 

This is just a short note to acknowledge receipt and to confirm I am
looking into the matters you have raised. I will provide a more
substantive response shortly.

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

 

Andrew Walsh

Lead Internal Compliance Officer

show quoted sections

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

References

Visible links
1. file:///tmp/rad19C4B_files/filelist.xml

Information Commissioner's Office

3 Attachments

Link: [1]File-List

24 October 2011

 

Case Reference Number IRQ0414217

 

Dear Mr Cross

 

 

I am writing further to my email of 07 October 2011. Thank you for your
patience whilst I looked into the matters you raised.

 

Firstly, please find attached a list of those MPÂ’s who are currently
notified. As I previously outlined, when Data ControllerÂ’s complete the
notification process, they indicate their nature of business. We have
therefore generated the list from those who have indicated that they are
MPÂ’s.

 

You may recall I advised that there were 606 MPÂ’s who were notified. That
figure was the case in September, when I initially made enquiries as part
of your request.

 

We have ran the report again and as you can see, there are 597 MPÂ’s
notified. Given the context of your request I assume this more recent
information is of more use to you. Essentially, the list is a snapshot at
any moment in time and the information I have provided was generated on 11
October 2011. I have included the name of the Data Controller, their
Registration number and the date of expiry. The information is a pdf, in
accordance with our usual protocols.

 

In addition, to assist your interest in this area, my colleagues in our
Notification Team have also generated a report showing those Data
Controllers who have historically have been notified (as MPÂ’s) but whose
notifications have expired within the last 12 or so months. As you will
see, this list contains another 46 names. Once again I have included the
name of the Data Controller, the date their notification entry expired and
their last Registration number.

 

In each of these cases we send automatic renewal reminders. I am aware
that you have previously been provided details on the reminders that are
issued so will not elaborate further on this process.

 

In general terms, we have found that Data Controllers usually do renew
their notification as a result of our reminders. This appears to be
reflected in the relatively high proportion of MPÂ’s who are notified.

 

It would also appear reasonable to conclude that the renewal of a
notification is not always completed in a timely manner. You may recall
you initially contacted us regarding Chris Hulme MP, who is an example of
a Data Controller,  whose notification was not renewed prior to the expiry
date, but who did so shortly afterwards.

 

At time we ran the report we were also processing the notification forms
of a further 2 MPÂ’s. They are also included within the information I have
sent.

 

So, in summary at the time were ran the report (11 October 2011) there
were 597 MPÂ’s notified, 2 pending applications and 46 who may need to
renew their entries.

 

Finally, I can confirm that we consider our approach towards the
Notification of MPÂ’s to be a proportionate and effective use of our
resources.

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

 

Andrew Walsh

Lead Internal Compliance Officer

01625 545 363

show quoted sections

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

References

Visible links
1. file:///tmp/rad58D07_files/filelist.xml

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