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I think this is an unhelpful and dismissive position to take. Organisations who receive large numbers of SARs are juggling a huge number of different issues, and the deadline can be incredibly useful to concentrate the minds of those from whom you’re trying to extract data. Moreover, the deadline is one of the few matters of legal certainty in subject access, and I think those working on them can be forgiven for wanting to know how to calculate it, especially of they have KPIs or other measurements that they have to make.

Of equal importance is the ICO’s mishandling of the matter, silently making the change to their interpretation of the statutory deadline at a time when they are monitoring councils for their compliance with that deadline. I do not believe that they would have put something on their website until a fuss was made about it here and on social media. Several people have subsequently pointed out the lack of proper version control on the ICO’s guidance, an important matter that might not have been raised without this debate.

On a side issue, the NHS’s masochistic decision to adopt a 20 day deadline is stupid and I think it should be ignored.

Tim Turner
Director
www.2040training.co.uk 

On 16 August 2019 at 09:50:32, Simon Howarth ([log in to unmask]) wrote:

I find it interesting and bemusing that we have some incredible challenges in the data protection world, but the thing that galvanises people into discussion is whether or not you take an extra day to answer a Subject Access Request.

I have been dealing with SARs (and FOI requests) in different roles for years and I have never received any form of query or complaint for being one day late.

If the day difference is of great importance to you, then I would suggest that your processes need reviewing. The NHS for example has an internally imposed "best practice" to respond to some requests within 20 days, any organisation for whom 31 days is an issue, I think has much larger problems to worry about.

I have found, and still find, that communication with requestors is the key. Acknowledgements and updates (where necessary) always illicit some latitude from individuals, if there are slight delays. If it's a complex request then there is the ability to extend the deadline. So I fail to see why this change by the ICO is anything other than a "take note" and change the timings in the systems, type activity.

Simon Howarth.

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