In early 2022, I made a Subject Access Request to both the local council and its LADO as they had not been as transparent as they should have been after my issues with my previous school and their reluctance to help me with my whistleblowing.
I did eventually get a general SAR back from the council. However, it was woefully lacking in its content – mirroring the SAR experience I had had with my previous school.
They recommended that I contact the ICO if I was unhappy with their response. Not one to give up, I did so immediately. It has taken months for the ICO to get back to me. But at least they did…
_____________
30
November 2022
Dear Mr Gwinnett
Thank you for contacting the ICO with your concerns about (the) Borough. Please
accept my apologies for the delay in responding to you. We contacted the
Council for further information about the handling of your request and have
just received their response. However, we can now provide you with an
assessment in this matter.
The
view of the ICO is that (the) Borough has not complied with its data protection
obligations. This is due to the time delay in providing you with a response. In
addition, your request can be made to any member of staff at the Council and
they should be sufficiently aware of how a subject access request works to pass
that on to the appropriate member of staff. You should not have been advised
after almost a month that you needed to refer the request to them yourself.
However,
the Council has provided information on the exemption used for the data that
you requested on the allegation made against you. The exemption was applied as
the Council believed that even redacted you would have been able to identify
the individual concerned. The ICO is satisfied that this exemption has been
applied correctly. We have advised the Council of our view in this matter.
All
complaints are retained on our system and should the ICO consider any
regulatory action against the Council in the future we may use the details of
your case in our consideration. Thank you for bringing this matter to our
attention.
Yours
sincerely,
(…)
Lead
Case Officer
Information
Commissioner's Office
__________
My response:
Dear (Lead Case Officer),
Thank you for your e-mail. I welcome your
findings overall. However, I must express my disappointment re the fact that
(the borough) have tried to use the excuse of an "exemption used for the data that you requested on the
allegation made against you".
On the one hand, I am fully
aware of who made the false allegation against me due to slip-ups from (…) HR
and a wide network of ex-pupil parents looking out for me. I have no interest
in ever communicating with the clearly troubled child, but it might be of
interest to you that they did have a close link to one of the governors from
(the) School.
On the other hand, and far
more relevantly here, my SAR to the council itself was not solely related to
the allegation: it was much wider than that. I was looking for information
about - for instance: duty of care after my nervous breakdown of Nov 19, an
attempt to put me on capability, correspondence between the school and the
council related to my links to the NEU. The SAR also included a request to be
given a copy of my personnel file. The request was subsequently repeated.
Neither request has even been acknowledged.
It seems to me that (the
borough) is either being quite disingenuous or incompetent. I would be grateful
if you could look into this as obviously I am extremely disillusioned with the
integrity and lack of duty of care of both the council and (the) School.
Best regards,
Alex
__________
Followed by
this:
Dear (Lead Case Officer),
Further
to my email this morning, please find an e-mail below making the SAR. You will
note that the allegation made about me was not even mentioned.
Regards,
Alex
Sent: Tuesday, March 29,
2022 9:52:46 AM
Subject: Subject access
request
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing to request
that (the council’s) HR supply
personal data held about me, which I am entitled to receive under data
protection law, held in:
o my personnel file.
o emails from September 2018 to date to me or with my name or initials included in the main body.
If you need any more information,
please let me know as soon as possible. I would prefer to receive the data
in printed form.
It may be helpful for you to
know that data protection law requires you to respond to a request for personal
data within one calendar month.
If you do not normally deal
with these requests, please pass this letter to your data protection officer or
relevant staff member.
(...)
Best regards,
Alex Gwinnett
_____________
to be continued…
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