Non-Compliance of Subject Access Requests by Government Organisations

Thank you for contacting the Information Commissioner’s Office. We confirm
that we have received your correspondence.

If you have made a request for information held by the ICO we will contact
you as soon as possible if we need any further information to enable us to
answer your request. If we don't need any further information we will
respond to you within our published, and statutory, service levels. For
more information please visit [1]http://ico.org.uk/about_us/how_we_comply

. 

If you have raised a new information rights concern - we aim to send you
an initial response and case reference number within 30 days.

If you are concerned about the way an organisation is handling your
personal information, we will not usually look into it unless you have
raised it with the organisation first. For more information please see our
webpage ‘raising a concern with an organisation’ (go to our homepage and
follow the link ‘for the public’). You can also call the number below.

If you have requested advice - we aim to respond within 14 days.

If your correspondence relates to an existing case - we will add it to
your case and consider it on allocation to a case officer.

Copied correspondence - we do not respond to correspondence that has been
copied to us.

For more information about our services, please see our webpage ‘Service
standards and what to expect' (go to our homepage and follow the links for
‘Report a concern’ and ‘Service standards and what to expect'). You can
also call the number below.

If there is anything you would like to discuss with us, please call our
helpline on 0303 123 1113.

Yours sincerely

The Information Commissioner’s Office

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References

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19 June 2018

Case Reference Number IRQ0748751

Dear A [name removed],

We are now in a position to provide you with a response to your request
for information to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
 
We have dealt with your request in accordance with your ‘right to know’
under section 1(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), which
entitles you to be provided with any information ‘held’ by a public
authority, unless an appropriate exemption applies.

Request

On 23 May 2018 you asked for the following information:

“I would appreciate it if you could let me know the following: - If a
member of the public submitted a subject access request to an organisation
and they did not supply a full response and all data, what action
would/could you take? –

If you took action, such as writing to the organisation and requesting
that they supply the data, if held and the organisation supplied you with
a response that clearly was not true, what action would/could you take? –

If it transpired that an organisation had lied stating they didn't hold
the data (but subsequently supplied it) and in addition, had told your
organisation that they didn't hold the data, what action would/could you
take? –

If someone experiences multiple organisations not supplying data, all
government based organisations (such as the Police, NHS and Home Office)
and it was clearly a repetitive problem and the person requesting the data
had evidence and reason to believe that the reason they were withholding
the data was to cover-up a number of crimes (such as abuse related
crimes), what action could/would you take?”

Response

In response, we do hold some information that we can provide. We
understand that you are seeking details of the options available to the
ICO, where an individual has raised a complaint with us about an
organisations failure to comply with the access provisions of the data
protection legislation we regulate.

When assessing an individuals’ complaint, we will consider a number of
factors, such as; the circumstances of the complaint, an organisations
response to the individual concerned, an organisations information rights
history and other relevant information. It may be helpful to explain that
it is up to us to decide whether to take action, as you will appreciate,
any action we do take must be proportionate, targeted and an appropriate
use of our resources.
 
In relation to action we could take, you may find it useful to refer to
the ICO Operations Directorate Service Guide, in particular section 10
which is entitled ‘taking action’.

[1]https://ico.org.uk/media/about-the-ico/p...

For more information concerning our approach to formal regulatory action
and the options available to us, you may also find it helpful to refer to
our Data Protection Regulatory Action Policy.

[2]https://ico.org.uk/media/about-the-ico/p...

That concludes our response to your request, we trust that
the information and links supplied prove helpful.

Review procedure

If you are dissatisfied with this response 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 Information Access Team at the address below or
email [3][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 our Customer Contact Team, at the address given or visit the
‘Complaints’ section of our website to make an FOIA or Environmental
Information Regulations complaint online.
  
A copy of our review procedure can be accessed from our website [4]here.

Yours sincerely, 
 
Aideen Oakes

Lead Information Access Officer

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

Please consider the environment before printing this email

For information requests please use: [5][email address]

For information about what we do with personal data see our [6]privacy
notice
 
 
 
 

References

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2. https://ico.org.uk/media/about-the-ico/p...
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4. https://ico.org.uk/media/about-the-ico/p...
5. mailto:[email address]
6. https://ico.org.uk/global/privacy-notice/