Recommendation L50: Compensation for Distress
From An Inquiry into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press, published 29 November 2012.
Recommendation
It should be made clear that the right to compensation for distress conferred by section 13 of the Data Protection Act 1998 is not restricted to cases of pecuniary loss, but should include compensation for pure distress.
Government response
No government response to this recommendation is on the record yet.
Recommendation context
Site note: No government response to this recommendation was found. The Information Commissioner's response to the report comments on the report's recommendations to the Ministry of Justice; those comments are the Commissioner's, not the Government's, and the Commissioner is not the body this recommendation is addressed to. Section 168 of the Data Protection Act 2018 provides that "non-material damage" includes distress; no government document found links that provision to this recommendation. Searched for this site between 23 and 25 September 2026, among other sources: the Prime Minister's statements to the House of Commons of 29 November 2012 and 18 March 2013, the Government's response to the consultation on the Leveson Inquiry and its implementation (1 March 2018), the Information Commissioner's response to the report (7 January 2013), and Parliament's written questions and answers that mention Leveson.
Blanket government agreement does not establish acceptance or delivery by each addressee. Some response passages cover groups of recommendations.
Scope of the government response
PM David Cameron responded to all 92 recommendations with a single statement accepting them "in principle" or "in part". No per-recommendation response was published.
Delivery
No statement on delivery from UK Government has been found in the sources searched (last checked 24 February 2026). This is separate from the response above.