Entitlement cards – the Government’s proposed ID-style cards – appear to be the priority for new Information Commissioner Richard Thomas.
He also seems to be talking tough about private investigators seeking data for their work. He and Home Secretary David Blunkett were speakers at a conference on the cards in January. Mr Thomas has doubts that such a card would combat identity theft and related frauds. Internet fraud lawyer Steven Philippsohn comments: ‘It has been reported that the new Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, stated that private detectives and journalists who obtain confidential information from banks and telecom companies will face prosecution which may result in fines and imprisonment. This is in response to reports of cases where personal information has been obtained by individuals which have impersonated another person, including the alleged theft of tax details from the Inland Revenue. The Information Commissioner stated that this type of conduct is absolutely clearly a criminal offence: obtaining information without consent." Those who store or process personal data may find that any transitional period for implementation is over. The Information Commissioner will shortly be looking to increase the number of prosecutions for obtaining information without authorisation. This means that both organisations which store information and those in the business of attempting to obtain information must ensure that practice and procedure are in place to prevent unauthorised disclosures. Organisations need to be fully aware of the implications of the Data Protection Act and precisely what they should be doing to comply.’Philippsohn is among the speakers at the IIR conference on internal audit in London in March. <br>
Think twice before you part with money as asked by official-sounding data protection registration firms, a CCTV installer has told Professional Security. Mick Webb of Surrey firm On Camera said he had been ‘battered’ with information from Data Protection Agency Services. When he got a ‘FINAL NOTICE’ warning him that failing to register with the Information Commissioner is a criminal offence, in his words, he thought, ‘well, perhaps this is part of the bureaucracy we have missed, and we should register’. He did – only to receive another ‘FINAL NOTICE’. So he contacted the IC – the official body responsible for protection of data. This issue is far from new to them. Data Protection Agency Services is one of 13 firms listed on the IC website that, the IC warns, is in no way connected to the IC. Information Commissioner Richard Thomas says: ‘I advise data controllers to ignore any approach made by these businesses, who appear to be charging up to œ95 + VAT for notification. Other than paying the annual statutory notification fee of œ35, on which no VAT is payable, there is no charge made by this Office to any data controller wishing to notify.’He adds that firms with complaints should go through their local trading standards. However this ‘business’ of charging firms œ60 for something they can get direct from the IC – if they need it at all – appears so profitable that whoever is behind it is not going away. That list of 13 does not include the Crewe registered office address on the ‘FINAL NOTICE’ of Mick Webb’s. He says: ‘I am afraid there is a lot of installers like ourselves who have wasted money – a tremendous amount if you add it up.’
