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Ian Kerr has been fined £5,000 for breaching the Data Protection Act and must pay £1,187.20 costs. Mr Kerr of Droitwich was recently sentenced at Knutsford Crown Court, following a successful investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) which revealed that he ran a covert operation to vet construction workers for employment in the industry.
The ICO found that Kerr, on behalf of the Consulting Association (TCA), held details on 3,213 construction workers and traded their personal details for profit. The operation ran from the 1970s until the ICO seized the information from TCA’s premises on 2 March 2009.
The Information Commissioner is minded to use the strongest powers available to him and serve Enforcement Notices on 17 construction firms that paid Mr Kerr for details on construction workers. The ICO has written to the firms with preliminary Enforcement Notices which outline that they unfairly obtained personal data from Ian Kerr. Formal enforcement action will follow shortly, subject to any representations made by the companies. The court heard today that construction firms paid TCA £478,937 between April 2006 and February 2009.
David Smith, Deputy Information Commissioner, said: “Ian Kerr colluded with construction firms for many years flouting the Data Protection Act and ignoring people’s privacy rights. Trading people’s personal details in this way is unlawful and we are determined to stamp out this type of activity. Kerr’s covert operation denied people their information rights under the Data Protection Act.
We all have important rights under the Act that enable us to check what information is held about us and to make sure it is accurate.”
The Data Protection Act clearly states that organisations must be open about how they process personal information and in most cases those processing personal information must register with the ICO. Following the ICO’s investigation, Kerr’s system was closed down and TCA ceased trading. The ICO has received over 1,827 enquiries from members of the public and as a result over 120 individuals who appeared on the database have now had their information returned to them.
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