Amidst the furor over the News of the World (NoW) hacking scandal it has been easy to miss this piece by Big Brother Watch. Since 2007 Merseyside Police have had 208 officers disciplined for offences with regard to abusing access to confidential information, and breaching the Data Protection Act (DPA). It is also reported that 7 of these Police staff have had their employment terminated for breaches of the DPA. Police staff including PCSO across the country have been found abusing the system to run background checks on possible partners and friends and some have been charged with passing sensitive information on to criminals and drug gangs. Merseyside Police are considered to have the largest number of officers receiving criminal convictions for abuse of the DPA since 2007. (208) Nationwide over 900 staff have been disciplined for these abuses to the DPA, admittedly this is a small percentage of the overall numbers of police staff, but it is likely that the accessing of personal and sensitive information is more widespread than many would care to admit, like the NoW scandal I am sure the rot goes much deeper. The table of abuses can be found on the Big Brother Watch website here.
Merseyside Police: Who Watches The Watchers?
09 Saturday Jul 2011
Posted in Community, Justice, UK & World Events
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Glad to see you are blogging again, however what’s more worrying is when organisations don’t (or can’t) respond to subject access requests.
The option of either the Information Commissioner criticising them or the solution of a lawsuit are the only two options really available to people.
Also sadly a lot of myths have grown up around the Data Protection Act which have put barriers in the way of getting access to information.
If someone made a subject access request to the Wallasey Liberal Democrats, would they be able to respond to it within the statutory 40 days?