L62 Response Accepted in Part AI-assessed

ICO Annual Report on Press

Recommendation

The Information Commissioner's Office, in the Annual Report to Parliament which it is required to make by virtue of section 52(1) of the Act, should include regular updates on the effectiveness of the foregoing measures, and on the culture, practices and ethics of the press in relation to the processing of personal data.

Published Evidence Summary
The following publicly available evidence relates to this recommendation:
According to ICO records from February 2025, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) publishes annual reports to Parliament, as required by statute. However, these reports do not consistently include specific, regular updates on the effectiveness of data protection measures, or on the culture, practices, and ethics of the press in relation to personal data processing, as recommended by Leveson.
How was this assessed?
Assessed by gemini-2.5-flash on 19 Mar 2026
Checked data held on this site (government responses, progress updates, independent evidence)
External sources searched: www.gov.uk, www.legislation.gov.uk, hansard.parliament.uk
Jurisdiction
UK-wide
Response
Accepted in Part
Accepted in Part UK Government
29 Nov 2012

The 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

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 implementation progress from inspectorates, select committees, official progress reports, and other sources. Check the source type badge to see whether each assessment is independent or government self-reported.

Reasonable Progress
27 Feb 2025
ICO Other

The ICO publishes annual reports to Parliament. However regular specific updates on press culture, practices and ethics in relation to data protection have not been a consistent feature of the annual reports.

View detailed findings

Annual reports are published but do not consistently include the specific press ethics focus Leveson recommended.

ICO annual reports View Source
Source
Report An Inquiry into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press 29 Nov 2012
Responsible Bodies
Information Commissioner Primary
Recommendation age 13.3 yrs
Last formal update 4863 days ago