Draft Data Protection (Charges and Information) Regulations 2018 Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Jo Stevens
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Draft Data Protection (Charges and Information) Regulations 2018
Jo Stevens Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Margot James
The Information Commissioner’s Office has a financial controller, a board, and a chief executive. It is held to account not just by my officials, but by the Secretary of State and me. I meet with the Information Commissioner regularly, and we assess through various means whether adequate financial controls are in place. To date, the ICO has proved that they are. Obviously, a significant uplift of at least a third in revenue, and all the additional headcount that that implies, will be a moment of transition, where the sort of problems that we have seen in other organisations may emerge. We will keep a very close eye on that, to ensure that they do not.
My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor was concerned that there were not enough resources, and that £30 million was too low. We will keep that figure under review. Certainly, the events of the past few weeks have shone a torch on just how much could be demanded of the ICO. As well as increasing the budget, and enabling the Information Commissioner to increase the number of staff that she has at her disposal, we have increased her powers. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill said that in Committee I walked back from the commitments that the Secretary of State gave to reviewing the powers that we have given the Information Commissioner in the Bill. We have strengthened her powers, and we have discussed with her her desire for greater powers. We debated that in Committee, and I confirmed that we would review her powers before Report. The Secretary of State and I are honouring that commitment.
Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)
The Minister mentioned that she speaks regularly to the Information Commissioner. Has she had a discussion with her about why it took more than four days for a warrant to be issued for ICO staff to go into Cambridge Analytica’s offices?
The Chair
Order. The instrument is very tightly drawn, and we are not going to talk about the wider aspects of data protection and Cambridge Analytica.