Data watchdog chief working from home... in Canada
Information Commissioner likely to face quarantine on return from 12-week visit to see mother hurt in crash
ONE of Britain’s most senior public servants has been working from her native Canada since lockdown, more than 4,500 miles away from her office.
A Freedom of Information request revealed that Elizabeth Denham, the Information Commissioner, was working from her home in the Canadian Pacific time zone.
The Daily Telegraph understands that Ms Denham returned home after her elderly mother suffered serious injuries in a road accident.
She is not due back in the UK until next month and is likely to have to selfisolate for 14 days when she returns.
Asked if she worked the same hours as her team, a spokesman for the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said she “works the hours required to perform the functions of her role and attends all necessary meetings and engagements, irrespective of any time difference”.
The spokesman insisted that she was “not on a leave of absence and is fulfilling all aspects of her role” and that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport was “aware of the arrangement”.
They added: “Ms Denham worked full time from her home in London from the start of lockdown and has continued to work full time from her home in Canada from June 13 onwards.
“Ms Denham is due to return to work from her home in the UK from September 7.”
All staff at the watchdog had worked from home since the start of the pandemic, they added.
Ms Denham made the decision to fly home after her mother, who is in her 80s, was knocked down in a road traffic accident, leaving her with serious injuries.
She had been recovering but in June suffered complications which convinced Ms Denham that she needed to be with her mother in Canada. She quarantined for 14 days on her arrival in the country before she could see and attend to her mother.
A source said internal meetings had been rearranged where necessary in order to accommodate the eight-hour time difference but noted that she had been present at virtual external meetings irrespective of the time that she had to get up.
Tim Turner, a consultant who first revealed Ms Denham’s whereabouts, previously called on her to resign.
He said: “This is a time for the commissioner to be completely on top of data protection regulation in the UK.
“At a time of crisis and uncertainty, Elizabeth Denham has abandoned her staff with no formal plans to return.”
Last month the ICO received an “adequate” rating in an internal audit on its “risk management policies, procedures and practices”.
The report said this meant “there is generally a sound control framework in place, but there are significant issues of compliance or efficiency or some specific gaps in the control framework which need to be addressed”.
The ICO’S recent activities include overseeing the original deployment of England’s ill-fated Covid-19 contact tracing app as well as the Test and Trace programme, which some claimed was “unlawful” after it was launched without a data protection assessment.
Ms Denham was a prominent figure during the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal, when the ICO fined Facebook £500,000 for breaking the law and misusing data.
The ICO said that Facebook had given app developers access to people’s data “without clear consent”.
The social media giant later paid the fine but did not admit any liability.