Just as I praise the ICO – they are shown to be taking “private” action

For private you can read secret, unless you are able to make a Freedom-of-Information request.

Freedom of Information Act 2000 – Wikipedia and Freedom of Information Act 2000 (legislation.gov.uk)

A few days ago I wrote this article in which I praised the ICO:

The ICO, Clearview facial recognition data and our police

There is an article on The Register, showing how bigger businesses get private “slap on the wrist” notices from the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and that these are not publicised on their public Enforcement pages.

ICO issues ‘reprimands’ in private to large data lawbreakers • The Register

Of course the ICO has a reason for this “private enforcement”.

However for an organisation that is focussed on protecting our privacy, and considering that many of these privately reprimanded incidents have had a serious impact on UK citizens – then in my opinion they should all be listed on the ICO enforcement page. Public disclosure of such incidents and their consequences is often the only way to get some businesses to change the way they operate.