Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what protections there are to ensure that a personal CCTV system located in a residence or business does no film people on public property; and what recourse there is in the event that an owner of such a CCTV system does not provide film material of people on public property taken with that system when requested to do so.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) regulates and enforces the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) which covers images recorded by CCTV cameras. The DPA places obligations on individuals and organisations to process personal data in a lawful, fair and transparent manner.

The ICO has a number of tools available to ensure compliance with data protection rules which include criminal prosecution, non-criminal enforcement and audits. For those who commit serious breaches there are significant financial penalties including fines up to £18 million or 4% of global turnover that can be applied as well as the backstop of criminal prosecution.