Remedy
Start free

Section 178: Review of processing of personal data for the purposes of journalism

Data Protection Act 2018 · 2018 c. 12View on legislation.gov.uk

Part 6: Enforcement

The Commissioner must—

review the extent to which, during each review period, the processing of personal data for the purposes of journalism complied with—
the data protection legislation, and
good practice in the processing of personal data for the purposes of journalism,
prepare a report of the review, and
submit the report to the Secretary of State.

In this section—

  • "good practice in the processing of personal data for the purposes of journalism" has the same meaning as in section 124;

  • "review period" means—

    (a)the period of 4 years beginning with the day on which Chapter 2 of Part 2 of this Act comes into force, and

    (b)each subsequent period of 5 years beginning with the day after the day on which the previous review period ended.

The Commissioner must start a review under this section, in respect of a review period, within the period of 6 months beginning when the review period ends.

The Commissioner must submit the report of a review under this section to the Secretary of State—

in the case of the first review, before the end of the period of 18 months beginning when the Commissioner started the review, and
in the case of each subsequent review, before the end of the period of 12 months beginning when the Commissioner started the review.

The report must include consideration of the extent of compliance (as described in subsection (1)(a)) in each part of the United Kingdom.

The Secretary of State must—

lay the report before Parliament, and
send a copy of the report to—
the Scottish Ministers,
the Welsh Ministers, and
the Executive Office in Northern Ireland.

Schedule 17 makes further provision for the purposes of a review under this section.

About this text

This legislation text comes from legislation.gov.uk. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. These source and reuse terms cover the legislation text, not Remedy's commentary.

Reuse reviewed 21 August 2026 under Open Government Licence v3.0.