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.

(more…)

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?