Sunak must correct the record over Tory data grab

When challenged by the MP Dawn Butler at the despatch box about a data-gathering tool on the Tory website, Rishi Sunak was unequivocal: “Of course our party follows all laws.” But after seven months of delay, the Information Commissioner’s Office has ruled that he was wrong.

According to the regulator, the party must “improve their practices, to ensure that their actions are in compliance with the data protection legislation”.

We revealed in January that the Tories had launched a crude data-harvesting exercise, disguised as a “tax calculator”. All parties collect data on potential voters, but we clocked that this tool was breaking the law.

We launched a challenge against this online tool straight away, with the Labour MP following up with a question to Sunak in parliament. After the former prime minister’s smug denial, we raised this data breach with the regulator.

The Information Commissioner’s Office has now set out the steps the Tories must take to bring their activities into line with the law, instructing them to make sure “data protection is considered” when they design online products and to review published guidance on the use of cookies.

Despite these breaches, the regulator has refused to take any enforcement action – there won’t even be a fine.

But that’s not where the story ends.

According to the Ministerial Code, “It is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information in parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.”

Sunak was clearly wrong when he claimed his party “follows all laws”. So Dawn Butler has now written to the former prime minister demanding that he comes to parliament and sets the record straight.

For Dawn Butler, “honesty and integrity are vital in our parliament”.

“It could be his parting gift as leader of the opposition to correct the record,” Butler said.

“When a working class Black woman asked the last PM whether his party had adhered to the law he sneered at her – watch the footage”, said Good Law Project’s executive director, Jo Maugham. “If he has an ounce of decency in his body he should now apologise.”

The Tories aren’t the only party trampling over data law. This summer the regulator reprimanded Labour for failing to respond when hundreds of people asked what personal data it held. And we’ve just taken the first step in legal proceedings against Reform UK over much the same issue.

With elections increasingly being fought online, data misuse by political parties damages our democracy. We will continue to call it out wherever we see it. But when politicians mess up at the despatch box, they need to fess up. It’s time for Sunak to come to parliament and come clean.