§ Lord Aveburyasked Her Majesty's Government:
How many applications have been received by the Home Office from individuals requesting personal data held on them, under Section 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998, in each of the calendar years since the Act came into effect; and what was the cost of providing the information in each of these years. [HL4964]
§ Lord FilkinThe Home Office possesses records of data protection requests submitted in each of the two transitional periods that have followed the Act's initial implementation rather than by calendar year. The first transitional period lasted from March 2000 until October 2001 and the second from October 2001 until the present date. The numbers of data protection requests received by the central Home Office and its agencies are set out in the table below.
1st Transitional period 2nd Transitional period Central Home Office (includes IND) 24 253 Prison Service 35 627 UKPS* 3,024* 3,024* FSS 7 20 CRB Not applicable 8 * Figures are averages for the calendar years 2000 and 2001. The central Home Office has not kept records of the cost of processing these requests, but some indication of the costs involved can be gained from figures provided by the Prison Service and UKPS. Of the 627 requests received by the Prison Service since October 2001, costs are estimated at £185,000, excluding stationery and postage costs, which were not recorded. The UK Passport Service estimates that it cost £86,000 in 2000 and £91,000 in 2001 to process the requests that it received.