If you have received a decision notice from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and you wish to appeal it, you must do so within 28 calendar days of receiving the notice. The appeal must be lodged with the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights), which is part of the General Regulatory Chamber. You need to apply using Form T98, Notice of Appeal.
The First Tier Tribunal mainly hears appeals of enforcement notices, information notices and monetary penalties issued by the ICO. The First Tier Tribunal can also direct the ICO to respond to a complaint raised under Section 165 of the Data Protection Act 2018 if you have not received a response from the ICO within three months.
What happens if you make an appeal against the decision notice from the IPO and are successful?
If the Tribunal decides that the ICO’s decision is either wrong in law or that they exercised their discretion wrongly, they can overturn the decision notice. The Tribunal will then issue a substituted decision notice with their findings.
You do however need to keep in mind that if an appeal raises a particularly complex or important issue, it will be transferred up to the Upper Tribunal (Administrative Appeals) Chamber.
How can Nelsons help?
Ruby Ashby is an Associate in our expert Dispute Resolution team.
If you want to appeal a decision notice issued by the ICO, you need to seek legal advice as soon as possible as you only have 28 days from the notice being issued to lodge an appeal. At Nelsons, we are able to provide you with essential advice as to whether you are able to appeal the decision notice and if so, we will be able to assist you with the drafting of the relevant application and seeing the appeal through to the end.
Please contact Ruby or another member of the team in Derby, Leicester or Nottingham on 0800 024 1976 or via our online enquiry form.