Posts Tagged ‘ Information Commissioner’s Office ’
Why the ICO has no idea if it can fine Google
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010
The Information Commissioner’s Office has been telling journalists that it can’t fine Google over the Wi-Fi slurping scandal, saying the ability to apply monetary penalties to companies only came in after the incident in question — leaving its hands tied.
But this is simply not true. At the moment, the ICO does not know if it can fine Google, so the possibility of £500,000 in punishment remains (though it sounds unlikely).
Let me explain. (more…)
Why Britain’s watchdogs have fewer teeth than goldfish
Friday, November 20th, 2009
If there’s one thing that makes me angry, it’s other people not getting angry enough. Britain has swathes of so-called regulators and “watchdogs” monitoring everything from advertising, to telecoms, to the protection of our private data, and they’re all about as much use as a toaster in a bath.
Take the Information Commissioner, for example. Christopher Graham may have started talking tough about cracking down on data leaks when he waltzed into his six-figure salary job this summer, but his feeble actions speak far louder than his fighting talk.
It was the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) who revealed that staff at a UK mobile network had illegally sold thousands of customer account details to brokers. That data was used to cold-call customers nearing the end of their contracts, in a bid to convince them to move to a rival network.
BT’s Phorm trial – the worst excuse ever
Monday, June 9th, 2008
Why didn’t BT tell the Information Commissioner about its Phorm trial in 2006? Because it was worried about the privacy implications? No, because it was a bit techy, according to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
“BT did not discuss these trials with the ICO as they were technical in nature,” the ICO claims in a statement sent to PC Pro.
Considering that pretty much every piece of personal data is now held on a computer database somewhere, is there anything left that isn’t too “technical in nature” for our poor Information Commissioner, which is presumably waiting for Mrs Miggins from the corner shop to lose her paper-round book before clamping down with the full force of our stringent data laws?
Authors
- Barry Collins
- Chris Brennan
- Christine Horton
- Darien Graham-Smith
- Dave Stevenson
- Davey Winder
- David Bayon
- David Fearon
- Ewen Rankin
- Ian Devlin
- Jon Honeyball
- Jonathan Bray
- Kevin Partner
- Mike Jennings
- Nicole Kobie
- Sasha Muller
- Steve Cassidy
- Stewart Mitchell
- Stuart Turton
- Tim Danton
- Tom Arah
Categories
- About the bloggers
- Android App of the Week
- cloud computing
- Green
- Hardware
- How To
- iPhone App of the Week
- Just in
- Microsoft Office 2010
- Newsdesk
- Online business
- Random
- Rant
- Real World Computing
- Software
- View from the Labs
- Windows 7
- Windows 8
Archives
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
advertisement


