Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, another favourite of this blog.
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Revealed: ‘Wild West’ for personal data undermines UK human rights
Original article by Jenna Corderoy republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.
Personal data rights are at risk in the UK. | pixinoo / Getty Asylum seekers and trafficking victims among individuals hit by failures to provide copies of personal data
Basic legal rights are being undermined by public authorities in the UK, by failing to disclose what personal data they hold on individuals, including victims of human trafficking and the Windrush scandal, openDemocracy can reveal.
People requesting copies of their private information, such as police or immigration records, have faced long delays or had their requests ignored entirely. Others have been given folders with key documents missing.
This is having a knock-on effect in the justice system, with lawyers telling openDemocracy that asylum applications and claims for false imprisonment have been put on hold due to the delays.
Victims of the Windrush Scandal have also struggled to obtain copies of their immigration papers in order to claim compensation.
The UK’s data protection laws allow individuals to request a copy of any of their personal data that is held by an organisation. These applications, known as Subject Access Requests (SARs), have become a vital tool for collecting evidence in legal cases, as well as helping to hold authorities to account.
But a year-long investigation by openDemocracy has found that public authorities – including police forces and government departments – are routinely missing statutory response deadlines. The findings of the investigation are set out in a 27-page report published today.
In Whitehall, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) stands out for its poor record for handling SARs. Last year, it responded to just one in five requests within the standard one-month deadline.
Lawyers and campaigners also singled out the Metropolitan Police for criticism. At the beginning of the year, almost 2,000 SARs being dealt with by the force were more than 60 days old.
In one case, lawyers needed to see the records of a human trafficking victim and asylum seeker, whom the Home Office had wrongfully accused of absconding when they were abducted by traffickers, held against their will and sexually exploited.
The government department later admitted it was wrong to withdraw the individual’s asylum application, and accepted they were a victim of trafficking and modern slavery. But the lawyers still needed to understand why the claim had been withdrawn in order to reinstate it. Lengthy delays to the SAR meant they had no choice but to progress the asylum case without these important documents, though the asylum claim was not reinstated until the day after the Home Office released them months later.
‘Wild West’
Individuals affected have almost no way to challenge their case. This has created a ‘wild west’ of personal data, in which public organisations are effectively free to flout the law.
The Information Commissioner’s Office, which is supposed to police SAR compliance, very rarely takes direct action, admitting it doesn’t “punish an organisation for breaking the law” apart from in the “most serious cases”.
Instead, the watchdog encourages ordinary citizens to pursue cases themselves through the courts. But this route is prohibitively expensive for most people, leaving them at the mercy of individual organisations, with little to no ability to enforce the law.
This is compounded by the fact that SAR compliance is already shrouded in secrecy, with several public authorities refusing to provide openDemocracy with their performance data.
An ICO spokesperson said that it provides “advice to organisations to improve their information rights practices” and has issued 13 reprimands since September 2022.
“We work closely with public authorities to monitor their regulatory obligations and help organisations respond effectively to requests for information,” they said. “We have processes in place to identify concerns, and these include looking at backlogs and how requests for information are handled.”
Major departments like the Home Office, Ministry of Justice, the Department for Work & Pensions and the Ministry of Defence are frequently complained about to the ICO.
In response to openDemocracy’s findings, a government spokesperson said: “We take our obligations under the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK General Data Protection Regulation very seriously, and we are working hard to remove delays to Subject Access Requests identified by the Information Commissioner’s Office.”
You can read our full report into SAR failures here.
Original article by Jenna Corderoy republished from OpenDemocracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.
MPs urge action over ‘woeful lack of transparency’ in universities
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Death, drought and devastation: Europe faces ‘huge number’ of climate extremes, report finds
How was Europe impacted by climate extremes in 2023? ITV News’ Health & Science Correspondent Martin Stew explains the UN and EU report
Heat-related deaths have risen, wildfires the size of London, Paris and Berlin combined raged across Europe, and the UK coastline faced a “beyond extreme” marine heatwave in 2023, a climate report has found.
Europe, including Britain, suffered a “huge number” of climate extremes as the continent was hit by heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and flooding last year, EU and UN scientists have said.
Extreme weather has affected human health and caused billions of pounds in economic losses, and is set to worsen as the world warms, experts said as they launched a report on the European state of the climate in 2023.
The report, from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the UN’s World Meteorological Service (WMO), details the impacts of global warming, including a “beyond extreme” marine heatwave off the UK and Irish coasts, the continent’s largest ever wildfire and exceptional glacier melt.
Heat-related deaths are on the rise in Europe, where it was found 63 lives were lost to storms, 44 to floods and 44 to wildfires in 2023.
Weather and climate-related economic losses totalled an estimated 13.4 billion euros (£11.5 billion), the report said.
Celeste Saulo, WMO secretary-general, said: “The climate crisis is the biggest challenge of our generation. The cost of climate action may seem high but the cost of inaction is much higher.”
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Anomalies in the annual surface air temperature for European land.
Credit: Copernicus…
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