A friend drew my attention to a recent interview given by the Information Commissioner to the Vancouver Courier. I’m not here to disparage “Canada's #1 Community Newspaper Site”, but I can’t help thinking that a local paper is a bit of a comedown after the glory days...
Data Protection
Taking the piss
On page 74 of the Information Commissioner's newly published Annual Report, you can find the welcome news that the ICO reduced the amount of water in flushing toilets and the timings of auto flushing in urinals. Sadly, the expansion of the organisation's footprint in...
Backwards Momentum
To quote from their website, "Momentum is a people-powered, vibrant movement. We aim to transform the Labour Party, our communities and Britain in the interests of the many, not the few." Founded by Jon Lansman and others in 2015, it arose out of the successful...
Two pints of FUD and a packet of pork scratchings please
As the pubs open, a huge amount of fuss has been made about the requirement placed on pubs to collect personal data for the purposes of the track and trace system. Local papers and websites buzz with articles that are plainly just law firm press releases, and the...
Role playing
A few weeks ago, the Data Protection world was shaken by a decision from the Belgian DP Authority to fine an organisation €50,000 after they appointed their Head of the Compliance, Risk Management and Audit department as their Data Protection Officer. I've commented...
SARmaggedon Days Are Here Again (Again)
Reading my emails, a headline leapt out at me: "The hidden cost of GDPR data access requests". It led me to BetaNews, a website that looks like it is trapped in 1998, and a story describing research into SARs commissioned by Guardum, a purveyor of subject access...
Blast from the past
As we all endure the lockdown and the uncertainty about when and how it might end, I have been trying to avoid thinking about the past. It's tempting to dwell on the last time I went to the cinema (Home, Manchester ironically to watch 'The Lighthouse'), the last time...
A load of Balls
On Tuesday, the self-styled "Private Prosecutor" Marcus J Ball announced to the world that he had Done An FOI. "I have sent an FOI request to St Thomas’s NHS Trust requesting confirmation/proof that Boris Johnson wasn’t lying about being admitted there or the severity...
Labour Pains
As the pandemic takes hold, an unwelcome distraction comes with news that an internal Labour Party report into how it dealt with antisemitism has been leaked, showing up in the hands of some of the dumbest people in left-wing politics. The document was unredacted, and...
My Corona
I'm not the first person to point out that the current flood of Covid-19 emails are reminiscent of the Great GDPR Consent Panic of 2018. Organisations you have no memory of ever interacting with are suddenly there as well as many household names, reassuring you of...