Wings Over Scotland | The snoopers at your shoulder

The “Clypegate” dossier didn’t bring Scottish Labour the scale of PR triumph they’d hoped for. Few papers bothered picking it up at all, with only a comically error-strewn Tom Peterkin piece in Scotland On Sunday (which amusingly specified the number of alleged offenders named as variously “50”, “almost 50” and “46”, never quite managing to get to the actual number of 45) doing much more than report its existence.

But the compilation, and the distribution to the media, of the list raised a number of far more serious questions about the branch office’s cavalier attitude to data protection law, detailed on Wings yesterday by expert consultant (and Labour voter) Tim Turner.

Individuals have already been subjected to threats as a result of being singled out and vilified by Labour, without having committed any crime. And anyone who’s ever posted a tweet or Facebook message in support of the SNP or independence – whether they’re members of the party or not – could be at risk of similar treatment.

If that alarms you – and it should – here’s what you can do about it.

Regardless of whether the “Clypegate” dossier is illegal in itself, Scottish Labour is obliged by law to provide anyone who asks with details of what information – if any – the party has collected about them for possible similar future use. Information relating to a person’s political views is regarded by the Data Protection Act as “sensitive” and has special requirements, as listed in Tim Turner’s article.

To find out you need to make a “Subject Access Request”, by writing to:

The Data Controller
Scottish Labour Party
Freepost GW4863
290 Bath Street
Glasgow
G2 4JR

Just type your details into this template provided by the Information Commissioner’s Office and send it off to the Glasgow address above (no stamp required).

“[Your name]
Known as [@YourTwittername or Facebook URL]
[Your address]
[Phone number]

[The date]

Dear Sir or Madam

Subject access request

Please supply the information about me I am entitled to under the Data Protection Act 1998 relating to comments I may have posted on the internet, particularly social media such as Twitter or Facebook.

If you need any more information from me, or a fee, please let me know as soon as possible.

It may be helpful for you to know that a request for information under the Data Protection Act 1998 should be responded to within 40 days.

If you do not normally deal with these requests, please pass this letter to your Data Protection Officer. If you need advice on dealing with this request, the Information Commissioner’s Office can assist you and can be contacted on 0303 123 1113 or at ico.org.uk

Yours faithfully
[Signature]”

Scottish Labour must reply. They’re legally allowed to write back to you and ask for a fee, up to a maximum of £10, but if they do and you don’t want to pay it, you can simply abandon the request at that point.

Of course, having to even partially process hundreds or thousands of SARs might be extremely inconvenient, time-consuming and expensive for Labour, particularly in Scotland where it’s in total disarray after the mauling it took in the election. But they should probably have thought of that before they started putting innocent people’s security and safety at risk just because they called Blair McDougall a “fat twat”.