305 journalists used one specific agency in Hampshire to obtain illegal information from the Police National Computer, the DVLA and telephone companies. These 305 journalists worked for a total of 20 national newspapers (ie most of them) and 11 magazines. A staggering 58 worked for one newspaper, 50 for another, 45 for another and 33 for another. The laws of libel prevent me from speculating which newspapers they were, but you can probably guess just as well as I can. In total, 40 lines of enquiry were commissioned by journalists working for magazines, but half of these journalists worked for just one magazine.
The Information Commission was hopping mad and persuaded the government to include a clause in the current Criminal Justice & Immigration Bill to stiffen penalties for such illegal behaviour.
However, I have learned that News International, owned by Rupert Murdoch, and the Mail Group have been lobbying the government hard to remove Clause 76 from the Bill. The Government is wishing to accede to their demands but is trying to persuade the Conservatives and the LibDems to go along with it. They too have no doubt been subjected to the same bully boy tactics by Murdoch and Dacre. The Tories and LibDems must resist the government's overtures. They are being used as a figleaf for the government's embarrassment.
I can now reveal that the Information Commission has got wise to this and tomorrow will launch an explosive grenade into the debate when he will publicly call on the government to stand firm. Below I reprint a statement the Commissioner will release tomorrow (it has been leaked to me), which you have to decode. What it really says is that he is spitting blood and how dare these lilly livered politicians break a solemn undertaking they gave to strengthen the law.
Note: This is Clause 76 of the Criminal Justice & Immigration BillDon’t water down penalties for blaggers stealing personal information, says Information Commissioner
The Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, is today issuing a stark call to politicians to resist attempts to water down new penalties for deliberate breaches of people’s health, financial and other personal details. He is also publishing new guidance for organisations to help them in the event of an accidental data breach.
The ICO has welcomed the government’s commitment to deter the unlawful trade in procuring personal information. Clause 76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, will enable courts to impose a custodial sentence on those convicted of existing offences of buying or selling personal data. This is the government’s first legislative opportunity after recent data losses to demonstrate its seriousness in safeguarding people’s personal information.
Richard Thomas, Information Commissioner, said: ‘I am pleased that government is now taking data protection, and the need to prevent security breaches, more seriously. But there have been powerful last-ditch efforts to get clause 76 removed from the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. There has been widespread support for the government’s decision to strengthen the law and - if data protection is to be taken seriously - it is vital that the government and other parties should stand firm against any possible amendments. I am determined to stop the pernicious illegal market in personal information which our reports exposed.
‘Losing half the country’s child benefit records looks to have been a serious mistake, but at least it was accidental. If there is a change of heart on legislation aimed at deliberate security breaches, the government will find it hard to convince people that measures aimed at preventing data loss need to be taken seriously. I know there are concerns in some quarters of the media, but - with a powerful public interest defence - responsible journalists have nothing to fear.
76 Imprisonment for unlawfully obtaining etc. personal data
(1) Section 60 of the Data Protection Act 1998 (c. 29) (penalties for offences under Act) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (2) (offences under Act punishable by fine) for “other than section
54A” substitute “other than sections 54A and 55”.
(3) After subsection (3) insert—
“(3A) A person guilty of an offence under section 55 is liable—(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or to both;
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to a fine or to both.
(3B) In the application of subsection (3A)(a)—
(a) in England and Wales, in relation to an offence committed before the commencement of section 282(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (increase in sentencing powers of magistrates’ court from 6 to 12 months for certain offences triable either way), and (b) in Northern Ireland, the reference to 12 months is to be read as a reference to 6 months.”
It will be interesting to see which of the mainstream media takes up this story. I suspect it won't be appearing on any Mail or Times blogs...
PS: Someone has suggested in the blogs this is an April Fool. It most emphatically is not.
ha ha
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of an April Fool is to be a little bit humorous.I don't see any laughs in this deadly serious story, so you can reasonably conclude it's real.
ReplyDeleteIain, many thanks for bringing this to the blogging public's attention.
Iain, you said yesterday you had a good story to publish at 10am today. Where is it?
ReplyDeleteThe way The Sun snuggles up to Brown is sickening. Today the man who cannot lead writes (?) an article on football and talks about leadership.
ReplyDeleteIt is becoming his own comic to write in. If not him they have Blunkett the thrice failed politician with a weekly column!
The we have the closeness of the Daily Mail editor with Brown and that paper's willingness to give printspace to the man who cannot lead!
Of course Labour will give in to Murdoch, as will Clegg as will Cameron. Murdoch runs the country.
Wouldn't it be glorious is Cameron and Clegg, together, demanded that the public get proper safeguards and that this ammendment must be backed.
Wouldn't it be glorious if both leaders said the time has come for Mr Murdoch and the Daily Mail to be told that they are betraying their readers by wanting to deny them proper protection under the act.
Why they do not take the fight to Murdoch show him and Dacre that they are not afraid of them. Perhaps,the public may like that!
Yes they will get bad press but when the readers complain - which they will do as both are read by Conservative, Lib/Dem supporters - there may be a change of attitude by these newspapers and a return to a situation where we are governed by politicians and not newspaper proprietors!
Let us see if Cameron and Clegg have any real GUTS!
Iain Dale fathered my love child.
ReplyDeleteWhy is this an exclusive? The information Commissioner was on the Today at 6.50am today, barely containing his fury at what the government was planning on doing.
ReplyDeleteThe story is also on Page 2 of my copy of the Guardian.
So the April fool is you labelling it as an exclusive I presume?
I am utterly committed to the concept of a free press - which is a bastion of a free society. But this is outrageous. Privacy is also a fundamental right of a free society. You cannot have one without the other. Our media increasingly skate close to the thin ice of unacceptable behaviour, unwarranted intrusiveness and in this case illegal behaviour.
ReplyDeleteWhilst French style privacy laws should not be introduced into the UK and used to prevent genuine investigative journalism, and public figures should accept a degree of public scrutiny via the press, it is not acceptable for journalists to break the law with impunity. We are all entitled to a degree of privacy - and medical records should be sacrosanct, and I think possibly financial records too.
Neither is it acceptable Govt to cave in to media tycoon pressure simply to curry favour.
Yet another example of this Government ignoring our basic liberties.
Bravo Richard Thomas
ReplyDeleteo/t webfusion appear to be less than loved elsewhere too.
ReplyDeleteeg: "Webfusion's products and service are both dreadful - I would never use them again, even if it does look to be good value."
http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews-all-556.html
The way this story was being spun on Today when my radio switched itself on this morning was that it was all about an evil government intending to restrict the heroic media's attempts to do investigative journalism.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to have chosen the "evil government intent on letting media moguls ride roughshod across our liberties" line.
As so often is the case, HMG is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't.
As to your exclusive tag, shum mishake soorlee?
More than a hint of April foolishness in the whole piece.
Murdoch has gutted journalism in this country. I'm not aware of any serious commentator who regards him as having been a good thing for the press. A thoroughly despicable person: and I remind you, I've got more moral right to criticise him than you, as I've always been against the Sun and the Times (a 2:2 paper if ever there was one).
ReplyDeleteAnd Dacre is, if anything, more repulsive still. I could weep at the thought of millions of uneducated, not very bright people taking him seriously.
Of course, the Lib Dems would stand up to media tycoons.
Actually, some of us remember Mr Murdoch doing a lot for the press by modernising it in the face of opposition.
ReplyDeleteAnnon @ 1720
ReplyDeleteActually, some of us remember Mr Murdoch doing a lot for the press by modernising it in the face of opposition.
I presume by modernise you mean, taken every last shred of moral decency that ever inhabited the British Press and prostituted on the altar of peoples public misery in collusion with other Press Barons - and all for money.
The only closed-shop Murdoch wants, is the one HE is in charge of.
I'll take Dennis Potter on this one, he famously called his pancreatic tumour, Rupert!
Daniel
ReplyDeleteNo. I guess you are being ironic; if not I suggest you revisit the history.
asquith said...
ReplyDelete"Murdoch has gutted journalism in this country. I'm not aware of any serious commentator who regards him as having been a good thing for the press."
Murdoch hasn't done anything to improve the standard of journalism. His great achievement was to take on the print unions in the 1980s by introducing modern newspaper production technology in the new Times plant at Wapping. Prior to this, newspaper production methods were antiquated and hugely inefficient and Fleet Street print workers were notorious for the 'Spanish practices' they indulged in. After a year-long strike the print unions caved in and were no longer able to hold the newspaper proprietors to ransom. All the other national newspaper companies eventually adopted the new technology.
I'll give you that, aardvark. And the unions (leaders rather than members) behaved as badly as usual. As in the case of Scargill, they had to be confronted and it's a tragedy that ordinary working-class people had to suffer for the hubris of their self-appointed leaders.
ReplyDeleteBut the decline of The Times and the woeful nature of The Scum can be laid at Murdoch's door.
For which his name should be cursed wherever intelligent discussion, liberal thought, journalistic responsibility, and general human decency are loved.
asquith said...
ReplyDelete"and the Times (a 2:2 paper if ever there was one)"
You really really like yourself, don't you asquith?
Not particularly, no. That was a quote from one of my tutors. But when I heard it, I knew it was true.
ReplyDeleteI, like Iain Dale, got a 2:1. The ones who got firsts either studied fanatically or were so clever that they took cleverness too far.
But that was some time ago!