Church and State blog: Department for Work and Pensions breaches the Data Protection Act

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Department for Work and Pensions breaches the Data Protection Act

Jobcentre Plus (JCP) is an executive agency of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). This morning Declan received a letter from JCP in clear breach of the Data Protection Act 1998. It says that after a thorough search our jobcentre, Highgate Jobcentre Plus, has confirmed that they hold no system or clerical records in respect of the termination of our benefits in September 2006. In other words, the information has been lost or, at the very least, is not held securely!

Declan requested the information after he was notified by JCP that we weren’t forced to live rough on the streets of London for more than 2 1/2 years because Declan failed to “sign on” TWO DAYS BEFORE he was due to do so on 29 September 2006 (the letter of termination is archived here), but because he failed to attend an appointment on 19 September 2006 (see blog of 6 May “Department for Work and Pensions rewrites our history”).

Declan’s complaint against JCP for refusing him access to a Starting a Business course that would enable him register NAC as a company limited by guarantee is still in play (see blog of 30 April “Declan's complaint against Jobcentre Plus goes to the Independent Case Examiner”) – the Independent Case Examiner’s Office has yet to deal with it! Now he is pursuing JCP to solve this problem of missing data in respect of the termination of his joint claim for Jobseeker’s Allowance in September 2006. Oh well!

This is the letter Declan sent by registered post this afternoon to the Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham:

Dear Mr Graham

Data Protection Act 1998, Subject Access Request

I am writing to you as the Information Commissioner responsible for the regulation of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the protection of personal information. I have written to Jobcentre Plus (JCP), Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), to request personal information, but the information I have requested has been lost or is not held securely.

Please find enclosed a copy of a letter dated 5 May 2010 from JCP IT Director David Chapman, stating:

We have no record of closing your claim on 27 September 2006 but we did close your claim in September 2006 because you missed an appointment on 19 September. If a customer misses an appointment we may close their claim with a one day suspension of benefit.

I responded to this letter by asking JCP Chief Executive Darra Singh for the following information: a copy of all personal data held by the data controller in respect of the termination of my joint claim for Jobseeker's Allowance in September 2006 (see enclosed copy of my letter of request dated 10 May 2010 with enclosure).

The response to this request has been to provide me with Jobseeker's Allowance Clerical Records and Jobseeker's Allowance System Records (see enclosed copy of letter from JCP dated 27 May 2010), but I have not been provided with any system or clerical record in respect of the termination of my joint claim for Jobseeker's Allowance in September 2006. Moreover, I have been informed that “after a thorough search Highgate Jobcentre Plus have confirmed that they hold no system or clerical records relating specifically to that period and action” (see enclosed copy of a second letter from JCP dated 27 May 2010).

I have not, for example, been provided with a copy of the letter, dated 27 September 2006, terminating my claim because I allegedly failed to sign my declaration (see enclosed copy of the letter of termination dated 27 September 2006). Please kindly note that the aforementioned letter to Mr Singh points out the following:

• My joint claim for Jobseeker's Allowance was terminated on 27 September 2006 because I did not “sign on” TWO DAYS BEFORE I was due to do so on 29 September 2006.

• My wife and I were forced to live rough on the streets of London for more than 2 1/2 years, from 3 November 2006 to 13 July 2009.

• I exhausted the appeals process from the street, where my case was dismissed by Mr Justice Walker of the High Court (Judicial Review), Lord Justice Scott Baker of the Court of Appeal and three judges of the European Court of Human Rights in spite of the fact that I was denied the internal appeals process by procedural impropriety on the part of the enforcement authority (the DWP).

• My joint claim for Jobseeker's Allowance was not even reinstated until 9 October 2009 – almost three months after we gained access to a roof over our heads – because my wife’s National Insurance number was “lost” from the Department’s computer system.

I understand that the Information Commissioner can ask JCP to solve this problem of missing data in respect of the termination of my joint claim for Jobseeker's Allowance in September 2006 so that they comply with the data protection principles. If they do not, you may consider taking formal legal action such as issuing an enforcement notice ordering them to do so. I note that an enforcement notice is a legally binding document that sets out what an organisation must do (or stop doing) to comply with the law.

Yours sincerely

Declan Heavey

cc Mr Darra Singh, Chief Executive, Jobcentre Plus (by email)
Ms Patrice Mulligan, Manager, Highgate Jobcentre Plus (by hand)

Church and State

MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

_________________________

[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

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Saturday, May 29, 2010

Department for Work and Pensions breaches the Data Protection Act

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