Help us stop the Daily Mail’s bizarre appeal to human rights

The Daily Mail has been bellyaching about the European Convention on Human Rights ever since Tony Blair introduced it in 1998. But now this self-styled champion of UK sovereignty is complaining that complying with UK law would breach its human rights.

Earlier this month, our executive director, Jo Maugham, sent the newspaper a data subject access request – something all of us can do to check if an organisation is using or storing our personal information. But the Mail has pushed back, having the chutzpah to argue that carrying out the search “would be wholly disproportionate and an unwarranted interference with its Article 10 rights”. That’s an article which protects freedom of expression in – you guessed it – the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Mail’s group legal adviser declaims that “our client is not prepared to carry out the disproportionate search demanded by your client. The law does not require it to do so.” Then she makes the generous concession that she will “consider” complying if Jo restricts his search.

The catch is, under UK law, approved by our parliament, the Mail has to give access to data. There are, of course, exceptions to protect journalism – which is defined broadly enough to include even the work of the Mail. But the Information Commissioner leaves no room for doubt:

“you cannot force an individual to narrow the scope of their request, as they are still entitled to ask for ‘all the information you hold’ about them. If an individual responds to you and either repeats their request or refuses to provide any additional information, you must still comply with their request by making reasonable searches for the information.”

It’s not long since the paper thundered that “for years, the Mail has campaigned against the insidious undermining of the sovereignty of parliament by the remote, unaccountable ECHR”. But as soon as it is under pressure, the Mail is all too happy to undermine the “sovereignty of parliament” and appeal to “the remote, unaccountable ECHR”. 

Unless it folds, we’ll be suing so that UK courts can make the Mail abide by UK law. And we’ll be keeping an eye on other media outlets too. We’ve made subject access requests to the Telegraph, Guido Fawkes and others the Tories have admitted they’re sharing Jo’s data with. Anything you can give will help us stand up to the Daily Mail, and other outlets, if they trample over UK law.