Information Commissioner's Office (UK)

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The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) in the United Kingdom, is a non-departmental public body which reports directly to Parliament and is sponsored by the Ministry of Justice. It is the UK Government regulatory office dealing with the Data Protection Act 1998, the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. The Information Commissioner is an independent official appointed by the Crown. The Commissioner’s decisions are subject to the supervision of the Courts and the Information Tribunal. The Office's mission is to Promote public access to official information and protect personal information.^[1]

Since the appointment of Richard Thomas as Commissioner, the ICO has been particularly noted for raising serious concerns over the Government's proposed British national identity card and database, as well as other similar databases such as the Citizen Information Project, Universal Child Database, and the NHS National Programme for IT, stating that the country is in danger of sleepwalking into a surveillance society^[2], drawing attention to the misuse of such information by the former states of the Eastern bloc and Franco's Spain.

Labour MP David Winnick recently attacked the idea that concern about the Surveillance Society, as promoted by ICO, is widespread. Winnick told the Home Affairs Committee in June 2007 that while he often received letters requesting more CCTV monitoring he had never received a single letter of concern opposing monitoring.^[3]

1 Data Protection Act
2 Freedom of Information Act
3 List of Information Commissioners
4 Similar roles in Europe
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Data Protection Act

The United Kingdom as a member of the European Union is subject to a strict regime of Data Protection. The Data Protection Act 1984 created the post of Data Protection Registrar with whom people processing personal data had to register. Under the provisions of EC Directive 95/46 (introduced in the UK as the Data Protection Act 1998, rather than as an SI under the European Communities Act 1972) the name of the post was changed to the Data Protection Commissioner.

You can search the register of data controllers at the website of the ICO, which also gives links to his counterparts around Europe.

[edit] Freedom of Information Act

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 the Commissioner's role was expanded to include freedom of information and the job title was changed to Information Commissioner ('IC'). The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 is the domain of the Scottish Information Commissioner and is aimed at public bodies administered by the Scottish Parliament (which are not covered by the UK Act).

[edit] List of Information Commissioners

Richard Thomas (appointed December 2, 2002)
Elizabeth France (appointed January 30, 2001)
Eric Howe (appointed September, 1984)

[edit] Similar roles in Europe

The role of the ICO is mirrored throughout the countries of the European Union and EEA who have equivalent officials created under their versions of Directive 95/46.