{"id":93498,"date":"2012-01-26T12:26:35","date_gmt":"2012-01-26T12:26:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=7593"},"modified":"2019-09-16T13:28:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T12:28:00","slug":"information-commissioner-leveson-inquiry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=93498","title":{"rendered":"Information Commissioner quizzed on data protection at Leveson Inquiry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ico.gov.uk\/\">Information Commissioner<\/a> was pressed at the Leveson Inquiry today over whether or not he should\u00a0seek out evidence of data protection breaches.<\/p>\n<p>Christopher Graham said he had seen no proof of breaches of data protection beyond the &#8220;historic&#8221; evidence resulting from Operation Motorman\u00a0<a title=\"ICO - What Price Privacy Now?\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ico.gov.uk\/upload\/documents\/library\/corporate\/research_and_reports\/ico-wppnow-0602.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">published<\/a> in 2006, which disclosed the names of 22 newspapers that used private investigator Steve Whittamore to access illegally-obtained information.<\/p>\n<p>Graham said there is currently &#8220;no smoke&#8221;, and that it was not in his remit to &#8220;set off on fishing expeditions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I am inclined to wait until I have more evidence of current abuse than I do at the moment,&#8221; he said, adding that the regulator had to &#8220;pick its battles&#8221; and &#8220;prioritise resources&#8221; where there is evidence of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<p>Lord Justice Leveson said that the absence of evidence does not mean something is or is not going on. &#8220;We do not know what we do not know,&#8221; he told Graham.<\/p>\n<p>Graham added he was &#8220;surprised&#8221; to hear the <a title=\"Index on Censorship - Express editor claims PCC &quot;should have intervened&quot; in McCann coverage\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.indexoncensorship.org\/2012\/01\/12\/express-newspapers-leveson-inquiry\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Daily Express&#8217; revelation<\/a>\u00a0earlier this month that they had used private investigator Steve Whittamore in 2010,\u00a0five years after he had been convicted for illegally trading information.<\/p>\n<p>He was also quizzed over a <a title=\"Hacked Off Campaign - Hacked Off Letter to Information Commissioner  \" href=\"http:\/\/hackinginquiry.org\/news\/hacked-off-letter-to-information-commissioner\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">letter<\/a>\u00a0published today by the <a title=\"Hacking Off Campaign\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hackinginquiry.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hacked Off<\/a> campaign asking the ICO\u00a0to inform Whittamore&#8217;s targets, so they may challenge claims that searches were done in the public interest.<\/p>\n<p>Graham said it would be a &#8220;phenomenal undertaking&#8221; to notify the targets revealed by Operation Motorman (the investigation that examined the use of a private investigators by the media to obtain personal information), adding that he &#8220;would have to take on a veritable army\u201d of people to do so.<\/p>\n<p>He later invited those concerned to make &#8220;subject access requests&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><em>Follow Index on Censorship\u2019s coverage of the Leveson Inquiry on Twitter \u2013\u00a0<a title=\"Twitter - IndexLeveson\" href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/IndexLeveson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@IndexLeveson<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Marta Cooper<\/strong>: Information Commissioner quizzed on data protection at Leveson Inquiry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[3815],"tags":[14437,2705,542,7427,7358,2469],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93498"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93498"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":109256,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93498\/revisions\/109256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}