Information commissioner calls for custodial sentences for data protection breaches

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Parliament should bring in custodial sentences for journalists and private investigators who break the Data Protection Act 1998 by dealing in or obtaining personal information, the information commissioner, Christopher Graham told a parliamentary select committee today.

Dismissing concerns expressed by the UK press that it would have a 'chilling effect' on journalism, Graham recommended, as his predecessor Richard Thomas had, that buying and selling personal information should be punishable with a jail sentence.

Although previously proposed as an amendment to the Act in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill in 2008,

the move was abandoned following concerns raised by journalists.

Graham, former director general of the Advertising Standards Authority, today appeared in front of the Commons Committee for Culture, Media and Sport following allegations made in the Guardian in July of phone hacking and 'blagging' at News International. The information commissioner defended the handling of the Motorman inquiry into illicit media use of private investigators, calling for the House of Commons committee 'not to shoot the messenger'.

It would not be lawful to publish the inquiry's findings in full, redacted or otherwise, he said. An edited version of the more than 17,000 invoices or purchase orders for people, who the press were interested in, would be 'no use to man nor beast', he said.

"We haven't got any further information to share with the committee about journalistic practice [beyond 2006]," he said, referring to Motorman and the 'What Price Privacy Now?' report that called for tougher sentences for breaches of section 55 of the Act.

While he claimed it would be in breach of the data protection act to reveal names of those targeted to the public, he said that he was willing to talk to people who believed they had been affected.

"I'm not saying everyone has to go off and get a court order to look at this stuff," he added.

Graham was concerned, he said, that releasing 305 names of journalists from various newspapers who had requested information from private investigators would not be fair.

It was not known if journalists had acted in the public's interest when requesting data, he said.

Graham – who would only be drawn on issues of 'blagging' and not phone hacking – said that deceitful tactics could be justified in some cases, for example the Guardian's use of a 'cod fax' for the Aitken scandal in 1999 .

It would be 'the wrong priority' to investigate journalistic practice, he said, adding that he was interested in the 'whole trade in information' - fixing juries and lost information, for example.

"I don't want to get into a battle between two newspaper groups," he said.