I had a complaint from ICO which actually worked out to my advantage!
I had a request from an ex-member of staff, who had already made several,
large, piecemeal requests to our HR department. As there were some issues
which were being dealt with by the Treasury Solicitor I sought their
advice about whether they were happy for us to disclose certain parts of
the information requested. The SAR was made in September, the Treasury
Solicitor replied in mid-January, by which date I was well over time.
Meanwhile I had conveyed my apologies to the requestor and provided the
ICO address, should he wish to complain, which he did. I then received a
complaint from the ICO, to which I responded and explained why I was
sitting on the request. The caseworker was really helpful and we debated
whether the information should be disclosed, eventually agreeing it should
not; ironically, within days the Treasury Solicitor responded, saying we
should!
I sent some of the information to the requestor, with a lengthy
explanation of why I was refusing to supply certain bits (never thought
I'd be pleased to rely on Durant). The ICO's response to the complainant
effectively backed me up over what I had sent and probably prevented
further correspondence; my bad behaviour would be 'kept on file', but was
regarded as a blip. How hard my knuckles would have been rapped if I had
refused to send anything I therefore don't know.
Hilary Lawrenson, Data Protection Officer
National Probation Service - South Yorkshire
Head Office, 45 Division Street, Sheffield, S1 4GE
Tel 0114 276 6911 Fax 0114 276 1967
Nigel Roberts <[log in to unmask]>
Sent by: This list is for those interested in Data Protection issues
<[log in to unmask]>
30/04/2007 13:17
Please respond to
Nigel Roberts <[log in to unmask]>
To
[log in to unmask]
cc
Subject
[data-protection] Failure to respond within statutory timescale to Subject
Access Request
s.7 of the UK Act allows a Data Subject to make a Subject Access
Request. A similar provision exists in the Guernsey Law.
There is a 40 day statutory deadline.
A person has served such a request.
What are the legal and practical consequences of /not/ replying within
the statutory timescale
It now seems that there is no effective sanction for this breach unless
the Commissioner can be persuaded to issue an enforcement notice. This
is likely to take time
Has anyone on the Data Protection list been in this situation (on either
side)??
What practical steps can this person take?
What liabilities (both theoretical and in reality) does the
non-compliant company or organisation likely to suffer.
I'd be grateful for any comments at all.
Nigel
PS: For the purposes of thism I am going to make the assumption that the
UK and Guernsey statutory provisions are practically the same, so I
suspect that the place of establishment of the company or Data
Protection Registration doesn't really come into it, but I have cc'd
this to Data Protection Commissioner, and will post anything I get back
which highlights any differences.
--
Nigel Roberts, CEO
Island Networks Group, Alderney, Guernsey GY9 3JZ
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