L57 Response Not Accepted

Reconstitute ICO as Commission

Recommendation

The opportunity should be taken to consider amending the Data Protection Act 1998 formally to reconstitute the Information Commissioner's Office as an Information Commission, led by a Board of Commissioners with suitable expertise drawn from the worlds of regulation, public administration, law and business, and active consideration should be given in that context to the desirability of including on the Board a Commissioner from the media sector.

Published Evidence Summary
The following publicly available evidence relates to this recommendation:
- The Information Commissioner's Office was not formally reconstituted as an "Information Commission" led by a Board of Commissioners under the Data Protection Act 2018 (Data Protection Act 2018, legislation.gov.uk).
- The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 renamed the office and made governance reforms. Section 124(5) of the DPA 2018 was amended by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, effective 20 August 2025 (Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, legislation.gov.uk).
- No published evidence that the ICO has been restructured with a board of commissioners with the specific expertise described in the recommendation (regulation, public administration, law, business) has been identified to March 2026.
Sources
How was this evidence gathered?
Evidence searched by Claude (Anthropic) on 10 Apr 2026
Checked data held on this site (government responses, progress updates, independent evidence)
Jurisdiction
UK-wide
Response
Not Accepted
Not Accepted UK Government
29 Nov 2012

The Prime Minister stated on 29 November 2012: "I am instinctively concerned about this proposal. There is a real danger of this recommendation being used to curb freedom of the press. We need to consider this very carefully - particularly the impact this could have on investigative journalism." The Data Protection Act 2018 retained a broad journalism exemption (Schedule 2, Part 5) and did not implement this specific recommendation. Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/david-cameron-statement-in-response-to-the-leveson-inquiry-report

Read Full Response
Note: 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.
Published Evidence

Published assessments of progress from inspectorates, select committees, official progress reports, and other sources. Source type badge indicates whether each assessment is independent or government self-reported.

Not Implemented
27 Feb 2025
Government Other

The ICO was not reconstituted as an Information Commission led by a Board of Commissioners. The Information Commissioner remains a single office-holder. No Commissioner from the media sector was appointed.

View detailed findings

Not implemented. The ICO remains a single Commissioner office, not a Board.

ICO governance structure View Source
Source
Inquiry Leveson Inquiry
Report An Inquiry into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press 29 Nov 2012
View Source
Responsible Bodies
UK Government Primary
Themes & Tags
Personal data privacy risks Weak Government Accountability & Scrutiny ICO Data Protection Governance Reform
Recommendation age 13.5 yrs
Last formal update 4931 days ago