Market Weighton Town Council (MWTC) has admitted to a data breach on an industrial scale.

In response to intervention by ICO to fulfil my Freedom of Information request for a copy of the “Town Council Dog Order” MWTC has claimed:

“All Market Weighton Town Council and its predecessor Market Weighton and Arras Parish Council records dating back to circa 1911 are held in an unindexed paper format in multiple locations.

We believe that the cost of locating, assessing whether the information is held, retrieving and extracting the information in order to respond to your request would exceed the threshold of £450 as defined by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. As a result, we are refusing your request under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. A full refusal notice is appended to this letter”

Data Principles

To hold Data in “an unindexed paper format” is in breach of Data Principles.

Reported To ICO

I have reported MWTC to ICO for what is clearly an industrial scale Data breach.

Internal Review

As the reason for not being able to address my FOI request is the fact that they are storing Data in breach of Data Principles I have requested MWTC undertake an internal review of their response.