Employment Tribunal decisions which name private individuals and their anonymisation or removal from search results for searches under their names

The request was partially successful.

Dear Information Commissioner's Office,

Please provide me with:

1) All information that you hold relating to complaints made to The Information Commissioner around the publication of Employment Tribunal Decisions which name private individuals since 2017

2) This information may include, but will not be limited to, the number of recorded complaints, the impact of ongoing publication and accessibility in search engine results pages, responses to requests for removal by the Employment Tribunal and by search engines, and the Information Commissioners responses to such complaints as well as your processes.

3) Please also provide details of any correspondence and discussions between ICO and HM Courts & Tribunals Service relating to either the anonymisation, or the removal from search engines by means of the addition of a No-Index tag, of those cases which are evidentially adversely impacting private individuals named within them.

4) Please also provide details of any correspondence between ICO and Google, and between ICO and Microsoft (Bing) relating to the blanket policy of not removing government links from search engine results pages when the name of a private individual is being searched online. This may also include any details of such complaints about search engines sent to ICO which have been upheld or denied, along with the reasons why and the processes which led to the decision.

Yours faithfully,

Joy Martin
Advocate for 11 people adversely impacted by the ongoing publication of ET decisions. Internet Erasure Ltd

icoaccessinformation, Information Commissioner's Office

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References

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icocasework, Information Commissioner's Office

23 March 2023

Our reference: IC-223257-F4M8 

Dear J Martin,

Thank you for your recent request for information. We received your
request on 22 March 2023. Your request will be allocated to an Information
Access Officer who will contact you under the reference number above in
due course.
Under statutory timeframes our response to your request is due by 21 April
2023.
If you have any queries about this information request you may email us,
quoting our reference number in the subject line. Please note that
Information Access Officers are only able to address information requests
to ICO; they are unable to assist with complaints to ICO, or to provide
general advice about the legislation we oversee, as this work is done by
other ICO departments.  
Our privacy notice explains what we do with the personal data you provide
to us when you make an information request:
https://ico.org.uk/global/privacy-notice...
Thank you for your interest in the work of the Information Commissioner's
Office.
Yours sincerely,
Information Access Team
Information Commissioner’s Office
Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF
T. 0303 123 1113 [1]ico.org.uk [2]twitter.com/iconews
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icocasework, Information Commissioner's Office

1 Attachment

3 May 2023 

Case Reference: IC-223257-F4M8 

Dear J Martin, 

Information request response 

Further to our acknowledgement of 23 March 2023, we are now in a position
to respond to your information request. Please find our request response
attached. 

Yours sincerely,

The Information Access Team

Information Commissioner's Office

Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF
Please consider the environment before printing this email.
For information about what we do with personal data see our privacy notice
at [1]www.ico.org.uk/privacy-notice.

References

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