GB News failed to comply with data request from Narinder Kaur, says ICO
GB News have been told to conduct an internal review after the UK’s data watchdog ruled the channel broke the law, by failing to hand over personal information to broadcaster and social commentator Narinder Kaur.
52-year-old Kaur, a former regular commentator on GB News, submitted a Subject Access Request (SAR) in March 2024, a legal process where organisations have to disclose the personal data they hold on an individual. Under UK data protection law, GB News had one month to respond. Instead, the channel stalled for months. Despite acknowledging receipt of the request, it failed to provide a full response altogether.
Following an official complaint, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has now ruled that GB News “failed to comply with its data protection obligations.”
The ICO has given the broadcaster 14 calendar days to issue a full response to Kaur and told GB News to carry out a full internal review into how and why the failure happened.
Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), organisations that breach data protection laws can face enforcement action from the ICO. This can include mandatory audits, enforcement notices and risk financial penalties of up to £17.5 million or 4% of a company’s annual global turnover, whichever is greater.
Related to this
Speaking after the ruling, Narinder Kaur said: “GB News thought they could shout me down and ignore me. It seems they thought the rules didn’t apply to them. Everybody has the right to their information.
I exercised my rights and I am pleased to see the ICO has confirmed GB News were in the wrong. For a broadcaster that claims to care about free speech, their internal culture says otherwise.”
Kaur, who first rose to fame on ‘Big Brother’ in 2001 and now regularly appears on ITV’s ‘Good Morning Britain’ and Channel 5’s ‘Jeremy Vine’, was a familiar face across GB News programmes, including ‘Farage’, ‘Jacob Rees-Mogg’s State of the Nation’ and ‘The Camilla Tominey Show’.
