ICO Good Practice Guidelines
In discharge of its functions and duties to promote good practice in areas of public concern, the Information Commissioner's Office should take immediate steps, in consultation with the industry, to prepare and issue comprehensive good practice guidelines and advice on appropriate principles and standards to be observed by the press in the processing of personal data. This should be prepared and implemented within six months from the date of this Report.
- The ICO published guidance on data protection and journalism covering the application of UK GDPR principles to journalistic processing, including the public interest test and the journalism exemption under Schedule 2, Part 5 DPA 2018 (ICO, Data protection and journalism guidance).
- No published evidence that the ICO consulted specifically with the press industry to issue the "comprehensive good practice guidelines" on standards for handling personal data that the recommendation envisaged has been identified to March 2026.
How was this evidence gathered?
Response
Accepted in Part
Response
Accepted in PartThe Prime Minister did not specifically address ICO operational recommendations in his 29 November 2012 statement. The Data Protection Act 2018 (Section 124) required the ICO to produce a data protection and journalism code of practice, which was published in 2023. The ICO has acted on several of these recommendations through its statutory functions. Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/david-cameron-statement-in-response-to-the-leveson-inquiry-report
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.
The ICO published comprehensive good practice guidelines for the press on data protection through the Data Protection and Journalism Code of Practice (2023). While this came much later than Leveson's recommended six-month timeframe, the guidelines now exist.
View detailed findings
Good practice guidelines published, though over a decade after Leveson's recommended six-month deadline.