More than five years since it was announced, the public inquiry into Britain’s political secret police still hasn’t started.
It is currently in a round of preliminary hearings about access to the files.
Remember the new GDPR privacy laws that had every company in a flap last year? They basically mean people have a right to see any information held on them before it is shared with third parties. Victims of spycops have pointed out that this means they should be shown the files on them being shared by the police with the Inquiry, and, in turn, by the Inquiry with investigators.
The police don’t like this and, once again taking sides with the police, the Inquiry is keen for a blanket exemption too.
On 31 January 2019 the Inquiry held a hearing to review its approach to privacy (here’s a transcript from the day).
At that hearing it was agreed that there should be a further hearing to consider:
- the extent to which Articles 13, 14 and 15 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 – also referred to as the General Data Protection Regulation – apply to the work of the Inquiry; and
- the practical effect of any resulting obligations.
On 26 February 2019 a note regarding the Inquiry’s evidence hearing process was also issued. This was to help inform submissions from the various parties. Submissions were published on the Inquiry website on 12 March 2019.
The hearing on 25 March will take oral submissions.
We don’t trust the police who abused us to redact our files. Everyone should be given access to their complete files so they can see for themselves how they were spied on.
There will be a demonstration outside the Royal Courts of Justice from 9.30am.
If you can’t be there, you can follow the hearing on Twitter’s #spycops hashtag.
