This is a very brief update following on from our story Downsizing in North Lanarkshire – a pensioner‘s never-ending journey. A second breach of antisocial behaviour records and concerns about evidence and retention were reported to the Information Commissioner‘s Office.
Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
My husband and I are not alone in our efforts to exercise our rights as Data Subjects with a local authority, and the ICO recently published Action taken to improve access to personal information from local authorities across Scotland | ICO.
The ICO “exists to empower you through information”.
Disempowered by lack of transparency
Transparency would facilitate ‘empowerment‘. The ICO upheld the complaint and recognised that we were entitled to pursue compensation. We are excluded from what the council was advised to do in respect of the concerns I raised, for my husband and me, as well as the wider North Lanarkshire community.
Transparency may lead to a reduction of the lengthy delays at the ICO. We waited 22 weeks for the case to be assigned and then a further five weeks for the case outcome.
Transparency would most certainly reduce the distress of data subjects and unnecessary expenditure of effort and resources within our public bodies.
I now have to submit yet another Subject Access Request to the ICO to obtain the details of their advice to the council. It was from such an action that I obtained correspondence between the ICO and the council in respect of the initial breach of 19 April 2023 – correspondence that now makes for an interesting read given the second, more serious, breach of 4 October 2024.
More details and correspondence disclosures to follow in the coming weeks.
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