Open Rights Group has called for the Government to “appoint a regulator with teeth” following John Edwards’ announcement that he has resigned as Information Commissioner. His resignation comes after a workplace investigation into undisclosed allegations.

Open Rights Group’s Executive Director Jim Killock said:

“John Edward’s departure is a chance for the Government to appoint a regulator with teeth, and reset the regulators’ approach of providing data protection in name only.

“Parliament must ensure that the future Commission is run by professionals who want the law enforced, including against government data failures.”

“Edwards may now be offered jobs with Big Tech, the data industry and the very large legal firms who represent them, as many of his own senior staff and predecessors were. Edwards should set an example and refuse attractive salaries provided by this ‘revolving door’ – and the government should legislate to prevent this from happening so that the regulator is kept at arms length from Big Tech.”

Re-set the ICO

Open Rights Group recently called for the ICO to be re-set after multiple failings while Edwards was at the helm. These included introducing the so-called public sector approach to enforcement, under which the ICO began to heavily rely on non-enforceable, written notices where the ICO point out that the law has been broken without taking any regulatory action to remedy an infringement or holding law-breakers to account.

As ORG’s alternative ICO annual report 2023-24 showed, reprimands lacked effectiveness and deterrence. The ICO’s own post-implementation review of the public sector approach would later reveal how the volume of complaints raised by UK residents about public sector organisations’ use of their data has increased substantially as a result.

Edwards failed to open an investigation into the Ministry of Defence following a data leak that reportedly, led to the death of at least 49 people in the aftermath of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. This decision led to a Parliamentary inquiry from the DSIT Select Committee, and an open letter from 70+ data protection experts lamenting a collapse in enforcement action. Dame Chi Onwurah, the Chair of the Committee, acknowledged the “institutional failure” that had led to the breach, which “raises serious questions for both the government and regulators like the ICO”.

Edwards was also supportive of the Government’s data protection reforms, which weakened the public’s rights and ability to have control over their personal data. The ICO was became the only regulator to fully support the government’s proposals despite concerns raised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the National Data Guardian, the Biometrics Commissioner, the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner, and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission.

Read The ICO isn’t doing its job – why the data watchdog needs to be reset.