Be scared, be very scared - the Information Commissioner gets fierce

Be scared, be very scared - the Information Commissioner gets fierce

The fearsome Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham

Information Commissioner pledges 'fierce' approach to 'slowcoach' public officials:
Christopher Graham, Britain's new Information Commissioner, has pledged to prosecute public officials who fail to comply with openness laws in his first newspaper interview. 

Mr Graham said he would take a "fierce" approach to overly-secretive authorities. He warned that some public bodies were still "dragging their feet" in complying with the Freedom of Information Act, and said that even Cabinet minutes should not routinely have their release blocked.

In a recent unpublicised case, Mr Graham broke new ground when he threatened a public body, the London Development Agency, with contempt of court proceedings for failing to disclose information under an FOI request. "This will send a shock-wave through the system," he said.

In his first newspaper interview, to mark his first six months in the job, Mr Graham told The Sunday Telegraph: "Shining the spotlight of publicity across a public service is how you find out where money is being wasted." 

At the same time he is urging the Government to introduce firmer enforcement of personal privacy laws including jail sentences of up to two years for rogue company employees who illegally sell confidential information.

Mr Graham said: "All Governments or bureaucracies would prefer, at some time, to get on with their business in private, but in their better moments they are interested in 'engagement' [with the public]. And you don't get that if people do not know what is going on.

"Freedom of Information has been 'live' for five years and some public authorities are better at addressing openness than others. But some are dragging their feet and my job is to get the slowcoaches to speed up and to realise my office will be on to them if they don't get a move on."

The role of Information Commissioner was created in 1984 but it has been given greater powers in recent years to promote greater openness from public bodies and data privacy for individuals. Mr Graham is the head of a 300-strong independent authority with an annual budget of more than £16 million.

"The Information Commissioner has a key role at the moment. I have responsibility for encouraging the highest standards of data protection and of transparency by public bodies. I am in the business of information rights. It's a role that is only going to get more and more important," he said.

Mr Graham's term will last five years and he hopes to leave a significant legacy. "I want to run an effective operation. I don't want to be remembered for fine speeches and interesting essays. I want to have got things done.

"I want to ensure that people's rights under the Data Protection Act and Freedom of Information Act work. I want to ensure that problems are resolved in a timely way because justice delayed is justice denied.

Mr Graham, 59, a divorcee who is due to get remarried in the spring, relishes his new challenge.

"I think [in the past] the Information Commissioner's Office [ICO] has not been alert enough and fierce enough with public authorities that do not comply with their requirements under the Freedom of Information [FOI] Act," he said. 

"After five years, public authorities should be able to do better. From now on, we will be a rather tougher partner. We will insist on adequate responses within the time limits. I will be up for issuing what are known as 'information notices' [which compel public authorities to supply information to the ICO or they will have committed a criminal offence]. We have not really done this so far but we will from now on."

The Information Commissioner has also sent a firm message to Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, that he should not routinely veto the release of Cabinet minutes without good cause. This followed Mr Straw's decisions to veto the release of documents relating to a devolution issue from 1997. "The point is that the [FOI] act does not say that all Cabinet papers should be vetoed. The veto is there only for exceptional circumstances," Mr Graham said.

Mr Graham, who was a news journalist with the BBC before working as Director General of the Advertising Standards Authority for nine years, denied that the Telegraph's revelations of the abuse of expenses by MPs had made the public think that senior figures in Government were trying to hide behind privacy laws. "It's a bit unfair on the Government because they did bring in the Freedom of Information Act," he said.

Last month Mr Graham studied a case in which the private details of millions of mobile phone customers, including their numbers and addresses, were illegally sold. Staff at T-Mobile passed the information to brokers who then sold it to rival phone companies. The companies, in turn, then cold-called customers as their contracts were about to expire to offer better mobile phone deals. At present, such offences carry what Mr Graham considers to be "paltry" fines under Section 55 of the Data Protection Act.

Mr Graham said: "People guilty of serious, negligent and reckless breaches of people's privacy – basically where information entrusted to organisations, companies or public authorities is made public without authority – should be liable to custodial sentences.

"Courts ought to have the power to jail offenders for up to two years. At the moment offenders who are caught might get a modest fine which is, frankly, set off as a business expense. But if people knew they could go to prison, they would think twice about committing such an offence that some people now consider as just a prank."

The Information Commissioner said his recommendations had now gone to Mr Straw because he wanted the increased penalty to "act as a deterrent to those who are currently involved in the illegal trade in personal information."

He added: "I have a clear agenda and it's an agenda that needs to be upheld with energy and vigour because the modern world of online activity and databases will only deliver benefits for people if they are very effectively policed. We [the Information Commissioner's Office] want to be respected and, to some extent feared, to ensure that people get their rights."

Mr Graham's latest initiative – announced on Wednesday – is to carry out a massive analysis next year into surveillance – a follow-up to his organisation's report "A Surveillance Society" published in 2006.

The Information Commissioner is clearly concerned society's obsession with CCTV cameras has gone too far. "There needs to be some evidence that it is necessary. You can't just say: 'It's a [crime] deterrent so we will have it.' It needs, for example, to go into pubs where there is a history of trouble. But it's unfair for a licensing authority to have CCTV as a matter of routine because law-abiding citizens should be able to have a meal or a drink without being captured on CCTV."

Daily Telegraph (20 December 2009)