A blog article by data protection specialist Jon Baines discusses the legal complexities surrounding access to withheld personal data in Subject Access Request (SAR) disputes under the UK's Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA18). When a data controller withholds information citing exemptions, the data subject can seek a court compliance order.
Baines highlights that standard adversarial proceedings rules prevent one party from accessing information withheld from the other. The Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA98) explicitly addressed this, allowing judges to inspect withheld data without disclosing it to the claimant or their representatives. However, the DPA18 lacks this provision due to what appears to be a drafting error.
To rectify the situation, the government has included a clause in the Data (Use and Access) Bill (DUA Bill), which is currently making its way through Parliament.
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