Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the timeliness of the Information Commissioners Office's responses to complaints about potential breaches of data protection legislation.

While DSIT acts as the ICO’s sponsor department within government, it is an independent regulator and accountable to Parliament. The ICO reports annually to Parliament on its complaints and investigations, and the Information Commissioner can appear before select committees to discuss performance.

To address their backlog, the ICO has introduced a new data protection complaints framework that sets out how it assesses each case and determines the extent to which it is appropriate to investigate. This will allow the ICO to review every complaint individually against its criteria, to decide whether they can provide an outcome at this stage or need to investigate it in more detail. This approach is designed to help the ICO focus its resources on the most serious issues, provide more timely outcomes, and support organisations in improving compliance.

We will monitor the impact of the increased number of complaints being received by the ICO as part of our regular sponsorship discussions, to ensure the ICO can meet its statutory obligations effectively.