Thursday 8 September 2011

MetPro/Barnet filming: ICO upholds Mrs Angry's complaint

A personal message for the London Borough of Broken Barnet, from Mrs Angry with love x


Come here ... look: see Mrs Angry's face? Yes, that is a smirk.

Mrs Angry has at last heard from the Information Commissioner in regard to her data protection complaint regarding the covert filming by MetPro at the infamous budget meeting at Barnet's Town Hall on March 1st of this year.

As the letter states:

"On the basis of the information provided to the ICO, it appears unlikely that the London Borough of Barnet has complied with the requirements of the First Data Protection Principle of the DPA (Data Protection Act) in this case. This is because it appears that MetPro on behalf of LBB acted outside of its remit and filmed members of the public including you without your knowledge or consent.

Although this course of action was taken by MetPro apparently without the authorisation or prior knowledge of LBB, in our view it is still the responsibility of LBB as MetPro would not have been at the meeting in the first place if their services had not been engaged by LBB. As far as the DPA is concerned, LBB ultimately has to take responsibility for organisations that they engage in such circumstances.
"

And of course, the responsibility undeniably lies with Barnet because, in fact, rather than acting outside a remit, Barnet had failed to establish any remit in the first place. As we know, there was NO contract with MetPro, ( and 600 other council service suppliers) - no specification of duties or proper regulation and Lord Palmer's Audit Report clearly identified the council as being grossly negligent in this respect.

The London Borough of Broken Barnet has never acknowledged any responsibility for the illicit filming, nor apologised to Mrs Angry for the incident.

The London Borough of Broken Barnet will be hearing from Mrs Angry in relation to this matter in the very near future.

4 comments:

baarnett said...

Well done Mrs A - but I believe Barnet has now introduced new technology: If you are standing in front of a NLBP Walkley poster, your conversation is automatically picked up, and listened to by his analysts in a ex-cold-war bunker underneath Totteridge station.

Citizen Barnet said...

And, further, what about how Barnet council handled the film once they found out about the filming? I think that was all very negligent as well.

Mrs Angry said...

baarnett, Walkley certainly does have superpowers: for example the uncanny ability to send letters and stick up giant posters whilst on leave. While he is on leave, he appears to have forgotten how to sign his name properly, too.
Vicki: that seems to have been glossed over, funnily enough, in my letter ...

A watcher said...

Is that one of them new finger cams? :)