Rustle up a privacy research project and ICO queen Liz will see you handsomely rewarded The UK's data watchdog is offering up to £100,000 for projects looking at how emergent tech affects information rights, saying that practical research "needs a stronger voice". As survey after survey shows declining public trust in the use of their data and the government plans to slurp even more, the Information Commissioner' …
Stuff research on crap like blockchain, AI and the rest.
What will make the public have more confidence in data protection is:
1) You issuing some eye-watering fines as soon as GDPR comes into force that'll make twerps like TalkTalk get their act together;
2) You making sure that the SME fly-by-night shysters who try and evade fines are hunted to the ends of the earth and their entire personal wealth confiscated;
3) Working with OFCOM to force the lazy, complacent telcos to block shady automated dialers, international scam calls.
I might also add that you allowed as a mitigating factor in a recent penalty notice that "the adverse publicity might affect Bright Homes future business". For crying out loud, that's THEIR well deserved and self inflicted problem, not a reason to reduce their penalty.
On (1) Ms Denham is by far the most active Information Commissioner/Data Protection regulator we've ever had. You and I might still be dissatisfied but she's about the best there is.
(2) is really hard and almost never happens. Really it requires primary legislation, which isn't really an ICO job.
(3) Fully agree.
(2) is really hard and almost never happens. Really it requires primary legislation, which isn't really an ICO job.
Only requires new legislation if the ICO are to do it.
If the ICO worked with the Insolvency Service in respect of unpaid penalties, they have the power to investigate and then disqualify directors for any "unfit" conduct. We might not get the money back quite that easily, but we could certainly hinder these twats running phoenix companies. I am confident that it is illegal to close down a company to avoid a likely statutory penalty, so in addition to a ban, the Insolvency Service could then go after the directors personally, or other companies in the same group.
The Insolvency Service are pretty good once they get the bit between their teeth, so sorting out the first couple of penalty-evasion cases would allow them to "cookie-cutter" all future cases. All the ICO need to do is make a formal referral of the company directors alleging unfit conduct, and see what happens.
For 3) I prefer my solution.
After the call dial something like 1477 or some vacant number in the 14x range. Your telco debits a couple of quid, and double that if you're on TPS, from the caller's account and credits it to your own and for good measure takes a handling fee. The caller wasn't on their network? No problem, charge it to the network it came from; they can pass the charge on with their own fee added. Rinse and repeat as required.
It'd take a certain amount of policing to establish the caller is a nuisance caller and it wasn't just the recipient trying to score a couple of quid from any bona fide call; the potential charges could be recorded until that's ascertained and then put through. Telcos providing connections for call centres would have to put some effort into credit control to make sure they weren't left with the bill if the call centre folded.
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