ICO Adopt DPP 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
The Information Commissioner's Office should immediately adopt the Guidelines for Prosecutors on assessing the public interest in cases affecting the media, issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions in September 2012.
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:
- No published evidence that the ICO formally adopted these specific DPP guidelines for its own prosecution decisions in media-related cases has been identified to March 2026. The ICO has its own Regulatory Action Policy governing enforcement decisions.
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
- 27 Feb 2025 · ICO The ICO adopted the DPP's guidelines on assessing public interest in cases affecting the media as part of its prosecution approach. 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.