V-Flyer

Citing a non-existent Act of Parliament, the Metropolitan Police obtained information about a holiday one of its detective constables and her daughter took to the West Indies.

[The Police] also approved an application to Virgin Atlantic to obtain details of Ms Brown's air travel going back five years, citing the non-existent Police Act 2007.

The implication in the article is that VS were duped by the non-existent Act and gave out the details. Can anyone confirm that?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08 ... n-officer/

I saw this on the BBC earlier this afternoon but the VS angle was barely mentioned.

VS needs to up it's Data Protection Act training for it's staff and revise it's procedures so that an application like this is referred to the legal team rather than dealt with just by customer services. No doubt the police logo made them think it was all above board.

If one the the VS legal team did approve this then they need more education!

tontybear wrote:I saw this on the BBC earlier this afternoon but the VS angle was barely mentioned.


If one the the VS legal team did approve this then they need more education!

I think the "non existent law" angle is more against the Greater Manchester Police rather than VS

buns

yes Mr B but someone at VS believed them and gave them the info without properly checking.

I don't think it is realistic for VS to carry any of the blame here; if the police say "you have to give us this info - the Police Act 2007 makes this a legal requirement" - who is really going to argue with that? I have no idea how many Police (or other) acts there are.

Providing they have a process to ensure it is actually the police making the request, it isn't for VS to check the legality of that request.

deep_south wrote:I don't think it is realistic for VS to carry any of the blame here; if the police say "you have to give us this info - the Police Act 2007 makes this a legal requirement" - who is really going to argue with that? I have no idea how many Police (or other) acts there are.

Providing they have a process to ensure it is actually the police making the request, it isn't for VS to check the legality of that request.

Certainly not all the blame, but the well-paid job of a Data Protection Officer for a major international airline is precisely to verify not only the validity of the party making the request, but the validity of the request itself.

Major corporations regularly refuse information requests from government agencies not because the agency itself is spurious, but because the validity of the request is dubious.

I'm no expert, but even I can Google "Police Act 2007" and see that it doesn't exist!

deep_south wrote:I don't think it is realistic for VS to carry any of the blame here; if the police say "you have to give us this info - the Police Act 2007 makes this a legal requirement" - who is really going to argue with that? I have no idea how many Police (or other) acts there are.

Providing they have a process to ensure it is actually the police making the request, it isn't for VS to check the legality of that request.

Erm, because it is the law & nobody is above the law. At least without a court order!

deep_south wrote:
Providing they have a process to ensure it is actually the police making the request, it isn't for VS to check the legality of that request.

Oh yes it is up to VS to check the legality of the request.

Just because the police ask fo something DOES NOT automatically mean it is a legal request.

The police are able to ask, in certain circumstances, for information from 3rd parties but that does not mean any organisation simply has to comply.

I wonder if VS hadn't supplied the data would the police have sort a court order? Somehow I think not.