Alistair Fraser, trading as Solent Credit Control in Portsmouth,
trading as Solent Credit Control in Portsmouth, had unlawfully
obtained personal information from the Department for Work and
Pensions. He used practices known as “blagging” or making “pretext
enquiries.” Then he sold the information to third parties.
Under the Data Protection Act, it is an offence for a person,
knowingly or recklessly, without the consent of the data
controller, to obtain personal data. It is also an offence to sell
or offer to sell data obtained in contravention of the Act.
Fraser asked for 66 similar offences to be taken into
consideration. The Magistrates fined him £1,400 and ordered him to
pay £1,000 costs.
The prosecution was brought by the Information Commissioner as a
result of the Baird Project, a joint investigation initiative
between the Commissioner, the Inland Revenue and the Department for
Work and Pensions. The project aims to target organisations that
illegally obtain and sell personal information.
The Information Commissioner, Elizabeth France, said:
“Some tracing agencies earn their livelihood
by operating outside the law. They deceive organisations into
disclosing information which they know they are not entitled to,
and then sell that information on to their clients. I am prepared
to use all the powers available to me under the Data Protection Act
1998 to challenge and deter such behaviour.”
