What is parliamentary privilege?
The court of appeal issued a temporary injunction blocking the Telegraph for naming Sir Philip Green on Tuesday. This overturned an earlier finding by the high court that naming the businessman was in the public interest. According to the ruling, five former employees signed NDAs after “substantial settlements” were made. The case was scheduled to be heard in full at the high court.
But Lord Hain has used his parliamentary privilege to name the businessman. Parliamentary privilege enables politicians to speak freely in the houses of parliament without fear of being sued for defamation.
The Houses of Parliament website describes it as:
Parliamentary privilege grants certain legal immunities for Members of both Houses to allow them to perform their duties without interference from outside of the House. Parliamentary privilege includes freedom of speech and the right of both Houses to regulate their own affairs.
On Wednesday Theresa May told the Commons that it was important that the government tightened up the use of NDAs, saying “it is clear that some employers are using them unethically”.
“Non-disclosure agreements cannot stop people from whistleblowing, but it is clear that some employers are using them unethically,” May told MPs at prime minister’s questions. She said the government was going to bring forward its consultation “to seek to improve the regulation around non-disclosure agreements and make it absolutely explicit to employees when a non-disclosure agreement does not apply and when it cannot be enforced”.
She was responding to a question from Labour’s Jess Phillips, who said: “It seems our laws allow rich and powerful men to do what they want as long as they pay to keep it quiet”.
Sir Philip Green named in Parliament as businessman at centre of Britain's #MeToo scandal
Sir Philip Green has been named in Parliament as the businessman at the centre of Britain’s #MeToo scandal.
Lord Peter Hain, the former Leader of the House of Commons, revealed the name under parliamentary privilege, saying it was his ‘duty’.
Speaking in the House of Lords he said:
Someone intimately involved in the case of a powerful businessman using non-disclosure agreements and substantial payments to conceal the truth about serious and repeated sexual harassment, racist abuse and bullying which is compulsively continuing I feel it’s my duty under parliamentary privilege to name Philip Green as the individual in question given that the media have been subject to an injunction preventing publication of the full details of this story which is clearly in the public interest.
The Telegraph revealed on Tuesday that it had spent the past eight months investigating allegations of bullying, intimidation and sexual harassment made against the businessman, but was prevented from revealing details of the non-disclosure deals by Sir Terence Etherton, the Master of the Rolls, the second most senior judge in England and Wales.
Summary
• The home secretary has apologised to migrants – including to Afghan nationals who worked for the British armed forces and Gurkha soldiers – who were forced to provide DNA samples under the government’s hostile environment agenda.
Migrants seeking to live and work in the UK on the basis of a family relationship can choose to provide DNA to prove a relationship to support an application.
But Sajid Javid told the House of Commons that in June it became apparent that the provision of DNA evidence had been made a requirement and was “not simply a request” in a number of family visa applications.
• The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has said Labour would reverse cuts made by the government since 2010 as Labour highlighted more than £108bn needed to “end austerity”.
Labour’s pre-budget review said it would take £42bn to reverse departmental spending cuts. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) had already highlighted another £19bn needed to stop further cuts to government.
Some £33.5bn would be required to reverse cuts to social security and social care, Labour said.
• Progress on making Britain a more equal country has been overshadowed over the last three years by “alarming backward steps”, the government’s own equalities watchdog has warned.
A rise in infant mortality for the first time since the 1990s, worsening prospects for disabled people, increasing child poverty and declining access to justice have outweighed progress in education and employment, according to the statutory three-yearly report to parliament, assessing fairness in the UK, by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
• Theresa May has emerged unscathed from a packed meeting of the party’s backbench 1922 Committee after an “emotional and personal” speech reportedly won over MPs, despite doubts over her Brexit negotiating strategy.
The prime minister faced a handful of awkward questions from Brexiters including Nadine Dorries, Sir Edward Leigh and Philip Davies, but loyalists said she won over the room and there appeared little sign that a leadership challenge looked more likely.
That’s all from me today. You’ll find continued coverage of political stories here.
At least 449 unlawfully compelled by Home Office to take DNA tests
At least 449 cases of the Home Office unlawfully compelling people applying to settle in Britain to take DNA tests have been identified in an internal review.
Those figures were not cited earlier in parliament by the Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, when he addressed MPs. The Guardian’s former Guardian home affairs editor, Alan Travis, has flagged them up on Twitter.
Page 17 of the report, which is now online here, states:
Analysis of available data shows that UKVI requested DNA evidence using the inappropriate wording in 398 cases within the overall Op Fugal (suspected paternity abuse) cohort of 591.
Of these, 83 applications were refused and 7 within this number were refused solely for not providing the DNA evidence. A further 6 instances have been identified where the refusal is not solely based upon the non-provision of DNA evidence but it is referenced. These 13 are being reviewed.
It adds:
Within the Gurkha concession, management information shows that since the policy was introduced in January 2015 through to July 2018, 51 cases have been identified where DNA was requested from applicants at their own cost.
This number represents 1.7% of the 2937 applications received over the operation of this policy from January 2015 to date.
A private member’s bill providing a legal route to UK citizenship for anyone descended from islanders evicted from British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) in the 1960s and 70s is due to have its second reading on Friday.
Drafted by Henry Smith, the Conservative MP for Crawley, the proposed legislation will return to the Commons on Friday.
Smith has held talks with the home secretary, Sajid Javid, in the hope of securing government support for those with links to BIOT, also known as the Chagos Islands.
Smith believes his bill could eventually form part of broader legislation to resolve nationality problems triggered by the Windrush scandal and Brexit.
The Commons debate comes as further evidence emerges of deportations and detentions of Chagossians, and those they have married, in the UK.
Their precarious legal position and the immigration services’ confusion over their status has been highlighted by the case of Marie Philine Volfrin.
Tens of thousands of cancer patients, including many who are terminally ill, will face further “hardship, stress and anxiety” if they are forced to transfer to Universal Credit, a leading charity has warned.
Some 26,000 sufferers receiving benefits face financial difficulty and worry if they are forced to move to the new all-in-one benefit system before problems with payments are solved, Macmillan Cancer Support said.
From 2019, people too ill to work and currently receiving Employment Support Allowance (ESA) are due to move to the new system, which has faced widespread criticism.
One terminally ill patient branded the new system “a complete nightmare”.
Angela Raine, a 55-year-old grandmother from Stanley, County Durham, who has incurable breast cancer, had to give up her job in a pharmacy after 13 years when she was diagnosed in 2017.
Government urged by MPs to press ahead with folic acid plans
There is “no good reason” not to press ahead with fortifying flour with folic acid in order to help prevent birth defects, DUP MP Nigel Dodds has told Parliament in a deeply personal contribution to a debate around a forthcoming consultation.
The MP, who has spoken previously about the experience of his family and their son, who was born in 1990 with spina bifida, welcomed the government’s announcement of the consultation, which will be launched next year.
Andrew Dodds died in 1998 just before his ninth birthday.
His father has told parliament that Andrew had eight wonderful years of life, gave love and was loved, but added that his family would love to see children being born without the conditions.
“They don’t need to, and we just have to move on with this issue,” he added.
“There is no good reason not to. There may be some abstract arguments advanced and some theoretical arguments advanced about liberty and mass medications, but I think this has been disproved. It is safe. It works.”
The Guardian revealed earlier this month that all flour is to be fortified with folic acid after ministers swung behind a plan that medical experts say will reduce the number of babies born in the UK with serious birth defects.
Speaking in parliament on behalf of the government Adams said that all stakeholders, including industry, would be encouraged to take part in the consultation. Key issues would include upper limits for fortifications.
He was urged by Conservative MP Rebecca Pow to ensure that the consultation looked at a range of aspects, including the fact that coeliacs use glutton free flour.
A host of government, NHS and advisory bodies support fortification, which already happens in more than 80 countries, including the US.
The move is also backed by medical royal colleges, including those representing professionals involved in babies’ and children’s health – obstetricians and gynaecologists, paediatricians and midwives. In the US there has been an estimated 23% reduction in neural tube defects (NTD) since folic fortification of flour was introduce in 1998.
Taking enough folic acid in pregnancy is estimated to reduce by as much as 70% the risk of a NTD such as anencephaly, a fatal condition in which the foetus develops without a major portion of the brain, skull and scalp and dies in utero or shortly after birth.
In Westminster debate to welcome good news on Govt consultation on folic acid fortification of flour to help prevent Spina Bifida and hydrocephalus @SHINEUKCharity
— Nigel Dodds (@NigelDoddsDUP) October 25, 2018
Updated
Yvette Cooper, chair of Commons home affairs committee, has said that a wider Home Office review is needed in the wake of revelations over mandatory DNA testing:
Home Sec statement on Home Office unlawfully requiring DNA tests is deeply troubling. Coming after #Windrush shows something going v wrong in Home Office again. New wider review must be independent & shd examine oversight failure & impact of policies on culture of HO operations
— Yvette Cooper (@YvetteCooperMP) October 25, 2018
People are “getting fed up” by Home Office mistakes of the type which Sajid Javid apologised for in parliament today, according to Tory MP Nick Boles.
“I am sure the people involved are quiet a lot more than fed up and I am sure there will need to be apologies and quite possibly compensation to people,” he added.
"Clearly another really, really bad mistake by the Home Office. We are, all of us I suspect, getting a bit fed up of such mistakes, and I’m sure the people involved are quite a lot more than fed up" @NickBoles
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) October 25, 2018
"Shows the impact of austerity on the Home Office" @ChiOnwurah pic.twitter.com/2VykuoaxTy
The Home Secretary appears to be alive to the optics of Gurkhas - particularly beloved among veterans by the public - being caught up in the latest immigration fiasco.
Javid is still on his feet taking questions from MPs, many of whom are specifically talking about the Nepalese-born troops, and says that the UK has owed the Gurkhas “an enormous debt”.
It was through expanding a scheme to allow the adult dependent children of Gurkha veterans to come to the UK that the problems around mandatory DNA testing emerged.
Visas had now been issued in the cases where people had wrongly been denied documents, he added, although investigations were continuing into whether there were others.
A brief but cutting intervention also comes from the Tory MP Sarah Wollaston, Chair of the Health Select Committee, who says that mandatory testing is “not only illegal, it is unethical and can put lives at risk.”
In answer to a question from another Conservative, Tom Pursglove, Javid said that there may be some outstanding cases of people who were denied visas or other types of documents following Home Office demands for DNA tests.
These may include more complex cases where a DNA testing was only one factor in the refusal.
A full story by our Home Affairs Correspondent, Jamie Grierson, is online here:
Updated
Sajid Javid apologies over Home Office mandatory DNA tests
Sajid Javid has apologised in parliament after it emerged that migrants had been ordered by the Home Office to take DNA tests to prove they can legally stay in the UK.
Making a statement in parliament, the Home Secretary said that a review had yet to come up with the numbers of people affected but it had established that a number of people have had their applications refused on the basis of not undergoing the tests.
An internal review into the practice is being published today, added Javid, who said he had given clear instructions that officials must never use mandatory DNA testing in immigration cases.
“I am deter to get to the bottom of why, in some cases, people could be compelled to provide DNA evidence in the first place,” he said.
Asked by his Labour shadow, Diane Abbott, if the practice was illegal, Javid said it was his understanding that the Home Office never had the express power to compel anyone to provide DNA.
Javid said that DNA testing had been used during a 2016 operation aimed at addressing fraud. Letters were sent out stating incorrectly that applications seeking the right to stay in the UK must provide DNA evidence and that not providing it would lead to their application being refused on suitability grounds.
It had been reported that 83 applications were refused, but Javid said it appeared for now that seven applications had been refused on the grounds purely of failing to provide DNA evidence. Six other applications were refused in cases where DNA evidence was not the sole factor.
The Home Office review had identified the use of DNA evidence in two other areas:
• Adult relatives of Gurkhas. In 2013 a scheme was expanded to allow relatives of British troops to settle in the UK. Guidance was issued saying that DNA evidence might be required. Javid said that this evidence was wrong and had been withdrawn. More than 50 cases were identified where applicants were asked for DNA evidence at their own cost.
• Afghan nationals who had worked for the UK government. A scheme assessed immigration applications from people in this group and assessed them on the basis of mandatory DNA testing which was paid for by the UK government. This required has been removed, said Javid.
The Home Secretary said that work was now ongoing to try to establish the extent to which people were asked to undergo mandatory DNA testing in other areas of policy making and governance.
Updated
France could deliberately adopt a “go-slow” approach at Calais if there is no Brexit deal, according to the Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab.
Speaking in the House of Commons, he warned MPs on all sides against seeking to “wreck” any deal secured by Theresa May during a punchy Brexit questions session.
“We also need to prepare for the worst-case scenario where the authorities at Calais are deliberately directing a go-slow approach by supporting a diversion of the flow to more amenable ports in other countries,” said Raab.
Tory MP Philip Hollobone asked him: “Has he made the Republic of Ireland aware that if the French start mucking about with Calais and a go-slow in the event of a no deal, the biggest impact would not be on UK trade, it will be on trade with the Republic of Ireland that passes through this country?”
Raab replied: “I’m confident the authorities in Dublin are well aware of the implications of no deal.”
The Brexit Secretary had also warned that medicines may need to be stockpiled for longer than six weeks in a no-deal scenario.
Labour MP Liz McInnes asked whether Dominic Raab envisaged circumstances where companies may need to stockpile for longer than the six weeks requested by the Health Secretary.
The German leader of the socialist group in the European parliament has told of his personal anguish at a link made by the Conservative party’s most senior MEP between his party’s political philosophy and that of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
In an interview with the Guardian, Udo Bullmann accused Syed Kamall of tarnishing the memory of Social Democrats who fought national socialism, often at the cost of their lives.
“What Kamall said was outrageous, it is outrageous to the memory of the Social Democrats who fought the Nazis and died for it”, said Bullmann, who leads the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats to which Labour’s 20 MEPs belong. “He later apologised for it, but only half-way, how he did not want to hurt our feelings. It is unacceptable.
I am personally offended by the ignorance Kamall has shown. It is shameful”.
The Prime Minister has taken part in the launch of this year’s poppy appeal. Speaking at Downing Street, she said:
One hundred years on from the armistice, I am joining the Royal British Legion in giving thanks to the First World War generation, to all those involved in subsequent conflicts, to the men and women who are currently serving in our Armed Forces and to those deployed overseas.
I hope the country will join me in wearing a poppy and giving thanks to the whole Armed Forces community for their dedication, sacrifice and bravery.
Speaker John Bercow has told MPs he is “delighted” the House of Commons Commission has accepted in full the main recommendations of the Dame Laura Cox review into bullying and harassment in the House of Commons.
Bercow recused himself from chairing the meeting at which the Cox recommendations were considered, since he himself has been the subject of a series of historic bullying allegations, which he denies - and which could now be investigated under the new, independent complaints system to be set up.
Interrupting Commons proceedings on Thursday, Bercow made a short statement to MPs, telling them, “I believe this is an important first step in our root and branch reform of the culture of this House. We need to create an internal movement which looks at everything and everyone, and ensures that we all treat each other with respect.
“We know that more than 200 people came forward with their testimonies to help Dame Laura form her opinions, and we owe it to each and every one of them to get this right.
He added, “knowing that there is a safe space – a haven – for members of staff and MPs to approach when things go badly wrong, should send out the strongest signal yet that we are listening, we have heard, and we are willing to change.
As well as an independent complaints process, the reforms will also allow historic incidents to be considered - and strike out parts of the current system deemed not fit for purpose.
Cox said she found a culture of “deference, subservience, acquiescence and silence” in the Commons; and recommended that people in management roles, including Bercow, should consider their positions.
Facebook has issued a second statement in which it calls on the Information Commissioner to let the company have access to the Cambridge Analytica servers so that it is able to audit the data received by the watchdog.
Cambridge Analytica, the data firm at the centre of the Facebook privacy row, said last year that it was closing and starting insolvency proceedings.
A Facebook spokesperson said:
Now that their investigation is complete, we are hopeful that the ICO will now let us have access to CA servers so that we are able to audit the data they received.
Updated
May and Hammond to court business leaders after budget
Prime Minister Theresa May and Chancellor Philip Hammond will next week meet around 120 CEOs and chairs, as well as international investors, to discuss Brexit and the budget.
The charm offensive will take place on Wednesday, two days after the budget according to reports.
Forty percent of voters up for grabs in any fresh Brexit vote
At least 40 percent of voters are up for grabs in any future referendum on EU membership, according to new analysis which states that Remainers who are serious about winning such a poll need to persuade ‘moderate’ Leavers and keep the ‘moderate’ Remainers.
It was carried out by Christina Pagel, director of the Clinical Operational Research Unit and professor of Operational Research at UCL, and Christabel Cooper, a data analyst and Labour councillor in Hammersmith & Fulham.
After carrying out research over the Summer for UK in a Changing Europe and the People’s Vote campaign, they write on Politics.co.uk:
There is also often an assumption that soft voters have the same priorities as the baked-in groups, just held less fiercely. This is just not true and is likely to be counterproductive. Assuming that ‘sovereignty liberals’ and ‘Lexiters’, for instance, care about immigration is missing the point completely. Assuming that all Remainers are left-leaning also risks alienating them.
Remain campaigners need to concentrate on keeping the soft Remainers just as much as persuading the soft Leavers.
Emphasising the control the UK has within the EU together with the overwhelming economic argument for Remain seems the most persuasive message for the three soft-sovereignty voter groups. Lexiters are the main soft leavers and 20% of them have already changed their minds – a full throated Labour leadership campaign for Remain could probably persuade many of these to switch.
McDonnell: £108bn needed to 'end austerity'
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell has said he would reverse cuts made by the government since 2010, as Labour highlighted more than £108bn needed to “end austerity”.
Labour’s pre-Budget review said it would take £42bn to reverse departmental spending cuts, reports the Guardian’s Jasper Jolly, who was at the event in Savoy Place, London.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies had already highlighted another £19bn needed to stop further cuts to government. Some £33.5bn would be required to reverse cuts to social security and social care, Labour said.
McDonnell pledged to increase spending on the National Health Service, adult social care, and schools. At a speech in London to business and trade union representatives, McDonnell also dismissed revisions to economic forecasts, which are expected to give the government more breathing space in the budget, as an “accountancy adjustment exercise”.
The Office for Budget Responsibility is expected to reveal a £13bn increase in the headroom for chancellor Philip Hammond as he aims to fulfill prime minister Theresa May’s pledge to end austerity.
The budget, which takes place on Monday, two days before Halloween, will be “more trick than treat”, McDonnell said. Labour will have an alternative budget ready to be implemented “as soon as we go into power”, he said.
The party will have “detailed, costed proposals” ready for the next general election, said McDonnell, who was sporting a cut on his head after tripping over some fly-tipped rubbish on the street.
8 years of austerity has damaged our economy and inflicted suffering on our communities.
— John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) October 25, 2018
In next week’s budget, Labour are demanding a change of direction. pic.twitter.com/ckwOizI9Rx
Updated
For all the - widely criticised - talk recently of nooses and ‘killing zones,’ Theresa May will be breathing easier today after emerging unscathed from last night’s 1922 committee meeting of Tory MPs.
But what has been the price of her survival? The New Statesman’s Stephen Bush, writes today that “the crazies” in her parliamentary party might not have removed Theresa May, but they block her path at every turn.
He adds:
They won’t even accept a transition that extends past the next election, which might deliver a parliamentary majority for the Brexit they crave, as they fear transition will last forever. So what’s left? The answer, unless the politics shift, is for the United Kingdom to leave without a deal.
In those circumstances, that it was Theresa May, not David Davis or Boris Johnson in charge when the crisis hit is unlikely to provide anyone much comfort.
Pro-EU MPs and campaigners have been getting worked up over broadcaster John Humphrys’ contempt for the “People’s Vote” tag which many of them use in place of describing it as a second vote.
In an interview on the Today programme with John McDonnell earlier, Humphrys had said: “let’s assume we have what is called - ludicrously, according to many people - a People’s Vote”.
Labour former culture secretary Ben Bradshaw said Humphrys was “totally out of control” and asked what BBC bosses were doing “to ensure producer guidelines are adhered to”.
Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman Tom Brake said: “Describing the PeoplesVote as ‘the ludicrously called People’s Vote’ is hardly an example of the impartial coverage the BBC is renowned for.”
Chuka Umunna, one of the most prominent faces of the ‘People’s Vote’ campaign tweeted:
John Humphrys calls a #PeoplesVote “ludicrous” just now on @BBCr4today - er....yeah, that’s why 700,000 went marching for it. It’s somewhat more “ludicrous” to suggest leaving with no deal will be anything other than a disaster - don’t recall him saying that to Rees-Mogg & co pic.twitter.com/MAnwB9vF21
— Chuka Umunna (@ChukaUmunna) October 25, 2018
The Guardian’s media editor, Jim Waterson, has this analysis of the ICO announcement:
The Information Commissioner had already announced its intention to fine Facebook the maximum it was allowed under the UK’s old data protection laws.
As a result today’s £500,000 fine is mainly just a confirmation of any earlier decision - and represents a drop in the ocean for Facebook, where annual revenues run into the tens of billions of pounds.
Instead, it’s further confirmation that the company is under intense scrutiny from regulators. This fine might be a financial slap on the wrist but the long term damage from this investigation is likely to be caused by the damning language from the Information Commissioner on how Facebook were slow to respond to the Cambridge Analytica issue.
This feeds into continued parliamentary scrutiny of Facebook, which in turn boosts the drive for new regulation of tech companies which could hit the company’s bottom line.
The Information Commissioner has made it clear that the fine would be significantly higher under new GDPR legislation, which allows fines of up to 4% of a company’s global revenue for data breaches. In Facebook’s case the business brought in $40.7bn (£31.5bn) during 2017, giving a theoretical maximum fine of £1.2bn - enough to focus executives’ minds in the future.
Updated
After today’s news, it’s worth revisiting pieces like this from Carole Cadwalladr, whose reporting led to the downfall of Cambridge Analytica and a public apology from Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
Facebook: We "respectfully disagree" with some of ICO findings
Facebook has responded by saying that it is currently reviewing the ICO’s decision. It adds:
While we respectfully disagree with some of their findings, we have said before that we should have done more to investigate claims about Cambridge Analytica and taken action in 2015.
We are grateful that the ICO has acknowledged our full cooperation throughout their investigation, and have also confirmed they have found no evidence to suggest UK Facebook users’ data was in fact shared with Cambridge Analytica.
This looks a bit more interesting now following today’s news from the ICO. BusinessInsiderUK’s Jake Kanter pointed last night to some records showing that Facebook’s Ceo and founder met recently with the then culture secretary.
Mark Zuckerberg didn't completely evade British politicians in the heat of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. He sat down with former culture secretary Matt Hancock in May to "discuss social media". pic.twitter.com/HD4EC4eTnP
— Jake Kanter (@Jake_Kanter) October 24, 2018
Although a disclosure from the DCMS doesn’t say so, the meeting likely took place in Paris, according to Kanter.
Both Zuckerberg and Hancock were speaking at the VivaTech conference.
The ICO’s work is continuing and there are still “bigger questions to be asked” about how technology and democracy interact and whether the legal, ethical and regulatory frameworks in place are adequate to protect the principles on which our society is based, Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham has said.
Elizabeth Denham, the Information Commissioner, said:
Facebook failed to sufficiently protect the privacy of its users before, during and after the unlawful processing of this data. A company of its size and expertise should have known better and it should have done better.
The fine was served under the Data Protection Act 1998. It was replaced in May by the new Data Protection Act 2018, alongside the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. These provide a range of new enforcement tools for the ICO, including maximum fines of £17 million or 4% of global turnover.
Denham added:
We considered these contraventions to be so serious we imposed the maximum penalty under the previous legislation. The fine would inevitably have been significantly higher under the GDPR. One of our main motivations for taking enforcement action is to drive meaningful change in how organisations handle people’s personal data.
The UK’s information commissioner has fined Facebook half a million pounds as a result of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The figure is the maximum permitted by the watchdog, which comes after Facebook lost an appeal.
The ICO’s investigation found that between 2007 to 2014, Facebook processed the personal information of users unfairly by giving app developers access to their information without informed consent.
The fine was the maximum allowed under the law at the time the breach occurred. Had the scandal taken place after new EU data protection rules went into effect, the amount would have been far higher.
The ICO has posted a statement on its website, on which it says tha Facebook also failed to keep the personal information of users secure because it failed to make suitable checks on apps and developers using its platform.
Those failings meant one developer, Dr Aleksandr Kogan and his company GSR, harvested the Facebook data of up to 87 million people worldwide, without their knowledge. As the ICO recalls, a subset of this data was later shared with other organisations, including SCL Group, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica who were involved in political campaigning in the US.
The ICO says it found that the personal information of at least one million UK users was among the harvested data and consequently put at risk of further misuse.
Updated
Good morning and welcome to Politics Live. I’m Ben Quinn and I’m going to be keeping you up to date on today’s politics stories.
Here’s what some of the lie of the land looks like at the moment:
• With the clock is ticking down until Monday’s budget, Labour’s shadow chancellor John McDonnell is preparing an anti-austerity one to deal with the grievances of Brexit-supporting voters if failure to strike a deal with the EU leads to a snap election.
McDonnell said he understood why people living in the poorer parts of Britain had voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum, but added that the chaotic negotiations had led to “instability, insecurity and uncertainty”.
• Theresa May has emerged unscathed from a packed meeting of the party’s backbench 1922 Committee after an “emotional and personal” speech reportedly won over MPs, despite doubts over her Brexit negotiating strategy.
The prime minister faced a handful of awkward questions from Brexiters including Nadine Dorries, Sir Edward Leigh and Philip Davies, but loyalists said she won over the room and there appeared little sign that a leadership challenge looked more likely.
• Progress on making Britain a more equal country has been overshadowed over the last three years by “alarming backward steps”, the government’s own equalities watchdog has warned.
A rise in infant mortality for the first time since the 1990s, worsening prospects for disabled people, increasing child poverty and declining access to justice have outweighed progress in education and employment, according to the statutory three-yearly report to parliament, assessing fairness in the UK, by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
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