Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether the Information Commissioner's Office was consulted on the migration of police data to Microsoft cloud services, either before 2017 or at any point since.

The Information Commission has been reviewing all its guidance following the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 coming into effect. The chapter on international transfers which sits within the existing Guide to Law Enforcement Processing has been a part of that process. We expect the updated chapter to be published before the end of 2026.

There is a formal requirement for organisations to consult with the Information Commission pursuant to Section 65(2) of the Data Protection Act 2018 or Article 36(1) of the UK GDPR in relation to high risks identified in a Data Protection Impact Assessment. We understand that a consultation was made. The Information Commission has, in addition, engaged informally with law enforcement authorities on issues relating to the use of cloud services for law enforcement processing.