Ian Kerr was fined £5,000 in July 2009 for breaching the Data Protection Act, following a successful investigation by the ICO which revealed that he ran a covert operation to vet construction workers for employment in the industry.
The ICO found that Kerr, on behalf of The Consulting Association, held details on 3,213 construction workers and traded their personal details for profit. Kerr’s database was used by over 40 construction companies and included information about construction workers’ personal relationships, trade union activity and employment history.
How do I know if The Consulting Association held information about me?
Because people may have been denied employment because of the activities of The Consulting Association, the ICO has assumed control of the database. We are running a telephone service for people to check whether information about them was held on The Consulting Association’s database. This service will be provided by the ICO, not The Consulting Association. We intend to run the service until the related employment tribunal hearings are finished, which we expect will be around March 2011. We will then decide whether it’s necessary to continue the service.
What should I do to find out if I am on the database?
If you wish to check whether information about you is held on the database you can call our Helpline on 0303 123 1113 between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday and choose option 1. Give us your name and a contact telephone number and an ICO case officer will call you straight back. The officer will search the database. If no match is found, we will confirm this straight away.
If the details you provide are similar to or seem likely to match those of someone on the database, we will ask you to provide us with further identification in writing. Once we have verified your identity and confirmed whether your details match those on the database, we will contact you to confirm if information is held about you and provide you with a copy of it.
Please wait until you have contacted us by telephone before writing to us. If we need you to write to us we will send you a ‘Request Pack’, detailing all the information you will need to provide.
Which companies used The Consulting Association?
The list below shows the companies that subscribed to The Consulting Association. The use of brackets indicates where companies have undergone a change of name or where subsidiaries have been absorbed by parent companies. Ex members may no longer exist or no longer avail themselves of the service.
Amec Building Ltd
Amec Construction Ltd
Amec Facilities Ltd
Amec Ind Div
Amec Process & Energy Ltd
Amey Construction – Ex Member
B Sunley & Sons – Ex Member
Balfour Beatty
Balfour Kilpatrick
Ballast (Wiltshire) PLc – Ex Member
Bam Construction (HBC Construction)
Bam Nuttall (Edmund Nutall Ltd)
C B & I
Cleveland Bridge UK Ltd
Costain UK Ltd
Crown House Technologies
(Carillion/Tarmac Const)
Diamond M & E Services
Dudley Bower & Co Ltd – Ex Member
Emcor (Drake & Scull) - ‘Ex Ref’
Emcor Rail
G Wimpey Ltd – Ex Member
Haden Young
Kier Ltd
John Mowlem Ltd -Ex Member
Laing O’Rourk (Laing Ltd)
Lovell Construction (UK) Ltd – Ex Member
Miller Construction Limited – Ex Member
Morgan Ashurst
Morgan Est
Morrison Construction Group – Ex Member
N G Bailey
Shepherd Engineering Services
Sias Building Services
Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd
Skanska (Kaverna/Trafalgar
House Plc)
SPIE (Matthew Hall) - Ex Member
Taylor Woodrow Construction Ltd – Ex Member
Turriff Construction Ltd –Ex Member
Tysons Contractors – Ex Member
Walter Llewellyn & Sons Ltd - Ex Member
Whessoe Oil & Gas
Willmott Dixon – Ex Member
Vinci PLC (Norwest Holst Group).
What action has the ICO taken against these companies?
The ICO has taken enforcement action against a number of construction companies based on the evidence recovered from The Consulting Association.
What about other intelligence databases I have heard of or believe may exist?
The ICO is committed to investigating any intelligence databases being operated in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998.
It is however very important to note that compiling and operating an intelligence database, even where this is done covertly, does not automatically breach the Data Protection Act. Each case must therefore be considered on its own merits.
If you believe you have evidence of an intelligence database being operated in breach of the Data Protection Act and wish to bring this to our attention please contact us.