The Information Commissioner enforces and oversees the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The Commissioner is a UK independent supervisory authority reporting directly to the UK parliament and has an international role as well as a national one.
In the UK, the Commissioner has a range of duties including the promotion of good information handling and the encouragement of codes of practice for data controllers, that is anyone who decides how and why personal data (information about identifiable, living individuals) are processed.
Further material is available from the Office of the Information Commissioner.
The remit of the Tribunal is to hear appeals by data controllers against notices issued by the Information Commissioner under the Data Protection Act 1998, usually enforcement notices. The Tribunal can now also hear appeals against enforcement notices or information notices issued by the Commissioner in regard to publication schemes under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The Tribunal will be able, by January 2005, to hear all appeals under the Freedom of Information Act, as set out in Section V of the Act in addition to appeals under the Data Protection Act.
There is a separate National Security appeals panel of the Tribunal, members of which are designated and appointed by the Lord Chancellor to hear appeals under Section 28 of the Data Protection Act 1998. These appeals are against a certificate issued by a Minister of the Crown, providing conclusive evidence that the exemptions from the sections of the Data Protection Act 1998 identified in section 28(1) of the Act are required for the purposes of national security. Anyone directly affected by the issue of a certificate may appeal against it.