Abject Failure of the ICO is beyond belief

Abject Failure of the ICO is beyond belief

9:00 AM, 29th March 2019, About 5 years ago 11

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The Landlords Alliance along with several of our members formally complained to the Information Commissioner about the application process for a selective licence from Sefton council. In essence our concerns were and are as follows:

1) Sefton ask for unnecessary and excessive information by demanding details of landlords properties licensed elsewhere. Sefton quote the licensing of HMO’s 1996 as justification for requesting this information. Having said that Sefton have failed to state how they will keep this data current and up to date, thus contravening GDPR.

2) Sefton state in their privacy policy that they will retain the data for 3 years after expiry of the licence. We now have become aware as a result of an email from Sefton to one of our members that Sefton will in fact retain this data for 6 years. The Authority therefore has induced landlords to sign up to a scheme with an incorrect/false privacy policy. What does this mean in practical terms?.

If a landlord were to obtain a licence then sell his property a year later, Sefton would retain details of his other properties around the country for a period of 10 years, ie 4 years remaining on the licence plus another 6 as per their revised privacy policy.

Sefton state that they will write every year to licensed landlords asking for updates. Two problems here. Firstly there is no legal obligation on landlords to assist Sefton remain GDPR compliant and secondly if the landlord is not licensed any longer in Sefton as a result of disposing of his property, Sefton have no business writing to that landlord at all.

We now have the unbelievable situation where the ICO have refused to intervene, defending their Sefton pals, and now Sefton themselves acknowledge that they are in breach with a flawed privacy policy. It is beyond belief.

We will not be reporting Sefton to the ICO as clearly this organisation is not fit for purpose.

The ICO are not relevant.

We can confirm however that the Information Commissioner continues to waste our time writing to us about data bases. It is stupidity personified. In the meantime landlords are prevented from obtaining licences, because of these major flaws. Sefton also have a history of data breaches.

Landlords we cannot fight your corner without members and without subscriptions. It is not fair, nor is it sustainable to sit on the fence and let others carry the load. Help us to help you.

Join now >> https://landlordsalliance.co.uk/


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Comments

22:12 PM, 1st April 2019, About 5 years ago

Reply to the comment left by AA at 29/03/2019 - 09:10
I think a big problem with Quango type organisations is that that they exist to reassure the public and provide a safe place for complainers to let off steam without doing any serious damage to commercial practices.

Only when the public lose confidence and withhold custom enmasse will the Quangos need to show some teeth.

Also, the fact they are themselves big inefficient bureacracies with a central chain of command makes them vulnerable to external pressures.

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