25 September 2023 Case Reference: IC-247159-W5G3
Dear Mary Moss,
Thank you for your complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) of 24 July 2023 about Camden Council (‘the council’) and their refusal of your subject access request (SAR).
We understand that you made a SAR to Camden Council following a dispute with your neighbours and you would like to access the details of the third party who requested the welfare visit.
We note that the council extended the deadline to respond to your request by a further two months due to its complexity.
We further note that your request for the information was refused, leading you to contact the ICO.
Your right of access
You have the right to ask an organisation whether or not they are using or storing your personal information. You can also ask them for copies of your personal information, verbally or in writing.
This is called the right of access and is commonly known as making a subject access request or SAR.
An organisation normally has to respond to your request within one month.
If you have made a number of requests or your request is complex, they may need extra time to consider your request and they can take up to an extra two months to respond.
If they are going to do this, they should let you know within one month that they need more time and why.
You will not always receive everything you have asked for. Depending on the circumstances:
- You may receive only part of the information you have asked for; or
- The organisation may not provide you with any personal information at all.
There can be other reasons why you may not receive all the information you expect, such as when an exemption applies, or the type of information you asked for is not covered by a subject access request.
Our view
As you have requested information relating to the details of the third party who requested the welfare visit, this would not be considered to be your own personal data and would therefore fall out of scope of a SAR.
Unfortunately, a SAR does not entitle you to copies of data relating to a third party, therefore you should not reasonably expect that this information would be disclosed to you under data protection law.
An organisation can refuse to give you your own information if it also includes personal information about someone else, except where:
- The other individual has agreed to the disclosure; or
- It is reasonable to give you this information without the other individual’s consent.
In their decision-making, an organisation must balance your right of access against the other individual’s right over their own information. This may lead to the organisation to refuse your SAR.
We note that the council have explained that, under Data Protection Act 2018, Schedule 2, Part 3, Paragraph 16, it cannot disclose information relating to another individual without their consent.
The council have explained that it is not appropriate to disclose your information, or the information of third parties, because your information is intrinsically bound up with the third-party data and classed as ‘mixed data’ and cannot be extracted without compromising the privacy of the third parties. It therefore cannot release your data without releasing third party data too.
The council have also explained that it is not possible to release your data without it becoming incomprehensible due to redaction, therefore redaction would not be an appropriate method to release the data.
Due to the nature of your request, we are satisfied with the council’s justifications for refusing your request.
However, we do recognise that the council were delayed in providing you with their response. We note that the council deemed your request as complex and therefore extended the timeframe to respond by a further two months. If a request is legitimately complex, then a justification should be provided to the individual without undue delay.
We will now write to the organisation to give them advice on improving their practices in this area, to ensure that future SARs are responded to promptly.
We understand that this may not have been the outcome you were looking for, and we do not wish to diminish the impact that this wider issue has had on you.
You can apply to the courts for information to be released to you. If you wish to take this course of action, we recommend that you seek independent legal advice. Unfortunately, the ICO is unable to assist you with this process.
Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.
Yours sincerely,Ellie Wright Lead Case Officer Information Commissioner's OfficeInformation Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AFT. 0330 313 1818 ico.org.uk twitter.com/iconewsPlease consider the environment before printing this email.For information about what we do with personal data see our privacy notice at www.ico.org.uk/privacy-notice.
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