Mishcon de Reya has acted for John Pring, the editor of Disability News Service, in his attempts to make the Department for Work and Pension (DWP) comply with its legal duties under the UK GDPR and respond to his data subject access request.
Pring has been trying for two years to obtain details of emails and other information written about him by DWP’s communications department. Despite the Information Commissioner’s Office agreeing that DWP’s failure to provide the information was a clear breach of data protection laws, the department has repeatedly failed to release the information.
In response to this “extraordinary and reprehensible infringement of the law”, the Firm agreed to act for Pring on a pro bono basis in his battle to secure the information from DWP.
Commenting on the case, Senior Data Protection Specialist Jon Baines explained that:
“Mr Pring should never have been put in this situation. Being able to access one’s data within a specified timescale is a fundamental human right, yet DWP has decided to evade its obligations in this regard, whilst the ICO has simply stood back and refused to take any meaningful action.
It cannot be right that a data subject – and especially one who performs such an important public interest role as Mr Pring – is forced to consult lawyers simply to get a government department to comply with the law.”
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