Thank you.

But all you have to advance is the reasonable belief that the story you're pursuing was in the public interest. Really, if you can't make that case, you shouldn't be in journalism. It's a very, very good increased defence for journalists.

I say it's arguable, anyway.

Perhaps they tried that, I don't know. But if someone's just stormed out of the government, the ministry's not going to be terribly helpful in putting you in touch with the ex-minister.

I must have missed that. Actually, Mr Davies, you raise that point. You'll see in the transcript of the Select Committee hearing that I was embarrassed by questioning from Mr Farrelly, the MP, who was talking about the case of Peter Kilfoyle, the former minister, who was apparently incandescent ...

Then you might well in that case have a public interest defence. I'm not quite sure where this is going because you can't generalise from the specific. I didn't notice many of them in the Motorman dossier, by the way.

If you want to contact me, you don't need my home number. You ring up the office and you say, "It's urgent we speak to Mr Graham, please contact him, tell him to ring us", and that's what reporters do. You don't have to ring up ...

Yes. So why would you not do the old basic journalistic stuff of ringing around and getting the number? I'm amused to see, for example, that my second statement has helpfully redacted the address of the office of the Information Commissioner. I think that's taking privacy a little ...

Because of the need to contact the individual for a quote?

If somebody has either shared their number with a provider and isn't particularly concerned about whether or not it's shared more widely, or there's simply been a mistake and that individual hasn't withdrawn the number from the service, yes, that's certainly the case.

It's actually better than that. I was reminded in the break that the Information Commissioner's office had been consulted by GB Group when they started, and while that doesn't provide a Good Housekeeping seal of approval, it does at least indicate that there was a responsible data ...

It would have a beneficially chilling effect on DVLC workers handing out car numbers and addresses based on those car numbers in exchange for money. It will have a beneficial chilling effect on health workers who apparently think it's perfectly okay to access someone's medical records in order ...

Well, this isn't a negotiation about these things, but it sounds to me as if the representatives of the press want to be somehow above the law. Surely a free press operates within a framework of law, and a vibrant and healthy press, challenging those in authority and doing ...

How much of a good deal do you guys want? Excuse me, sir, for being heated about this, but you fought everyone to a standstill back in 2006/7. You did it again in 2009/10. You've got so many privileges and exemptions. It's perfectly possible for a ...

My problem is the press. It's not the perceived effect on the press, it's the behaviour of the press, worrying away at a penalty designed to deal with a problem which they say doesn't apply to them, and I say, "If it doesn't apply to you ...

Indeed, sir, but the fundamental principle that we were dealing with in this report all those years ago was that those who were in a position of trust in the health service or the phone companies or the DVLA didn't see passing on information for sums of money as ...

Yes. I would also say the sort of people Mr Whittamore and his friends were ringing up.

We were always, I think, at the ICO looking at it from the point of view of the suppliers and the dealers rather than the users. As I've said ad nauseam, I have no evidence as to use, but I am concerned that I don't have effective powers ...

Well, no, because that was -- I don't know how I could apply this point to press content regulation. The beauty of the advertising system was that the three legs of the stool, the advertisers, the agencies and the media, had a mutual interest in the credibility of commercial communication ...

It's obviously a personal view born of experience, but I was for eight or nine years the Director General of the Advertising Standards Authority, which is an effective self-regulatory body. Of course, I can't speak for the ASA these days, I'm two and a half years out ...

Indeed. I understand the difficult position that the Inquiry is placed in.

Another way of tackling the Gordian Knot is for the press, who are so convinced of their rectitude, to get together with the Ministry of Justice and say, "Okay, we accept that Section 77 and Section 78 should ...

Yes.

Yes.

If you took the view, sir, that Section 78, which applies a reasonable belief test to the public interest, was strengthening the position of the press, then that's good to go. But the dilemma we are in is that our press friends say that they're not doing this ...

The -- I mean, yes. The situation basically is that there was a consultation, there has to be a consultation under the Act, in the autumn of 2009, and we've never had a response to that consultation. And the new government wasn't particularly keen to proceed.

When I started ...

I did deal with this in my evidence to the Select Committee back in September 2009, and of course a fair number of individuals have had access to the Motorman material, either through subject access requests, "I think I may be in the file, I want to check, I want ...

Yes, and also the public -- the publishers at one of the magazines, the magazine Closer, I think, Bauer.

Indeed.

Yes.

That's my recollection.

Yes.

I meant the Express. I apologise.

Indeed. But I hasten to say, sir, that if a recommendation of your Inquiry was that I should consider deploying my resources that way, of course I'd have to take it very seriously.

Exactly.

Not just a fine, and for the real cowboys it might well be a custodial penalty, but I'm really concerned to access the full range of penalties available to the courts to make the punishment fit the crime.

Yes.

If I could just say, I'm not pleading poverty. Every organisation has limited resources. We're actually quite well resourced on the data protection side. But every regulator has to make choices and to focus on the areas of greatest concern and abuse, and it usually begins with some ...

Indeed, sir.

I'm saying that the regulatory priorities of the Information Commissioner's office must be concerned about the current problems where there is evidence of abuse. We're absolutely flat out on a whole range of issues, whether it's car insurance or these cases of information security in the ...

I think I've made my point to the government and to Parliament. I've been supported by the Justice Select Committee. It's simply a question of the orders being placed for commencement. When the political will is there --

With respect, the pressure that I've been applying is very much evidence-based. You say there are no offences being committed. There are many, many offences being committed. It just doesn't happen to include newspapers at the moment, so far as I can see. I don't think it ...

But the reason --

No, because the problem that I've been looking at since 2009 is the problem of information going missing from databases. It's a general problem. And the courts are imposing such modest sentences that it's not a disincentive. We have had in the past seven months four prosecutions ...

Yes, indeed, and I put the -- I gave evidence to that committee, but I also reminded them that there was the outstanding matter of acting on the 2006 report, because the Information Commissioner's office had taken the view that there should be action against the suppliers and the dealers ...

Yes, there is. I accept that.

Mr Jay, I simply say Parliament has given the Information Commissioner all sorts of responsibilities, and I'm applying my resources in those areas where I have reason to believe there may be misconduct, and what you've described to me doesn't compel me to start scattering around Section ...

So it's a spot check, if you like?

I'm interested in the point you're putting to me. I wonder where "reasonably requires" comes in.

Yes.

We're also talking hypothetical, but nevertheless --