Supplementary written evidence from the Information Commissioner's Office (PS 146)

When we spoke on the phone recently you asked if the ICO could supply the following:

• A sample of redacted information: Enclosed are two samples.[1] The "hard redaction" sample is where we have simply removed any personally identifiable information. The "soft redaction" sample is where the personally identifiable information that has been removed has been replaced by a description of its nature. The pages of the samples should be read side by side as each line in a ledger runs across all three pages. In both soft and hard redacted cases the samples represent a one page extract from a Motorman ledger.

• Further explanation of the staff time involved in redaction: Producing the enclosed "soft redaction" sample took an experienced member of staff who is familiar with the details of the Motorman enquiry around 10 mins. Scaling this up to the approx 17,500 lines of text in the four ledgers accounts for something of the order of 100 hrs of staff time. We estimate that, on the same basis, similarly redacting the invoices and other documents in the spreadsheets would take a further 50 hours. Once time for organising the work, checking the output, staff breaks (given that this is intensive at screen work) etc is allowed for we are reaching something close to our original estimate of 30 days of staff time for "soft redaction". We remain of the view that "hard redaction" would take roughly half as long.

• A table showing the involvement of individual publications identified in the Motorman operation: This is enclosed.[2] The table formed part of our report "What Price Privacy Now?" although the version attached was actually published as a correction to the original table that featured in the first edition of the report.

I hope that this additional information is of assistance to your Committee.

David Smith

Deputy Commissioner

November 2009

[1] Neither sample published here

[2] Table not published here