ICO Good Practice Guidelines
Leveson Inquiry · An Inquiry into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press · Issued 29 November 2012 · Addressed to: Information Commissioner
Source — verbatim from the inquiry
●Inquiry recommendation
In discharge of its functions and duties to promote good practice in areas of public concern, the Information Commissioner's Office should take immediate steps, in consultation with the industry, to prepare and issue comprehensive good practice guidelines and advice on appropriate principles and standards to be observed by the press in the processing of personal data. This should be prepared and implemented within six months from the date of this Report.
Leveson Inquiry, An Inquiry into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press · 29 Nov 2012 Source PDF →
Published evidence summary
Publicly available evidence relating to this recommendation:
- The ICO published guidance on data protection and journalism covering the application of UK GDPR principles to journalistic processing, including the public interest test and the journalism exemption under Schedule 2, Part 5 DPA 2018 (ICO, Data protection and journalism guidance).
- No published evidence that the ICO consulted specifically with the press industry to issue the "comprehensive good practice guidelines" on standards for handling personal data that the recommendation envisaged has been identified to March 2026.
Response — verbatim from government
●UK Government
The Prime Minister did not specifically address ICO operational recommendations in his 29 November 2012 statement. The Data Protection Act 2018 (Section 124) required the ICO to produce a data protection and journalism code of practice, which was published in 2023. The ICO has acted on several of these recommendations through its statutory functions. Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/david-cameron-statement-in-response-to-the-leveson-inquiry-report
UK Government · 29 Nov 2012 Written response →
Evidence trail — what's actually happened since
- 1 Jan 2023 · ICO The ICO published comprehensive good practice guidelines for the press on data protection through the Data Protection and Journalism Code of Practice (2023). While this came much later than Leveson's recommended six-month timeframe, the guidelines now exist. View source → Confirmed Completed
Each entry above links to a primary source — gov.uk written statement, consultation response document, or inspection report. The Index does not characterise government intent; it tracks what has been published.
How this page is built
Source and Response are verbatim from primary documents. The Evidence trail records published activity since — written statements, consultation outcomes, inspection findings, parliamentary references. The Index does not paraphrase or characterise intent; it tracks what has been published. Where the evidence is the absence of action (a missed deadline, a slipped timetable), that absence is documented from primary sources rather than inferred.
This recommendation's data is verified periodically against primary sources. The Index is monitored for staleness weekly.