This article was produced by Nabarro LLP, which joined CMS on 1 May 2017.
The incoming Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham took office on 15 July 2016, succeeding Christopher Graham, who held the office from mid-2009. The office is a fixed term appointment and is not renewable.
Graham’s background was in advertising standards (he was director general of the ASA) whereas Denham’s background was in information regulation in Canada and she has held various high-level posts since 2003.
Whilst Denham appears to be an advocate for tough enforcement (including seeking to acquire the power to penalise company directors personally where corporate data controllers had been fined) her stated aims on taking up the office in the UK were to provide advice and education backed up by compulsory audits for difficult cases. She is said to be a proponent for open government. One of her most significant investigations involved a scandal which rocked Canada where Canadian government officials had been found to have deleted emails concerning a persistent cluster of murders of women of a particular race in a region called the Highway of Tears. This amounted to denying freedom of information requests. As a result criminal investigations are pending both into the suppression of emails and also in relation to the Highway of Tears murders themselves. Denham has investigated large data users such as Google and Facebook and has caused them to alter privacy attitudes and policies.
Denham will be the first UK Information Commissioner who will have to tackle the General Data Protection Regulation and Brexit at the same time.
