prime ministers they with prime ministers they automatically get on after a certain number_ automatically get on after a certain number of— automatically get on after a certain number of years. it almost begs the question— number of years. it almost begs the question of. — number of years. it almost begs the question of, is there ever a true character— question of, is there ever a true character perform well as prime minister? — character perform well as prime minister? orare you kind of character perform well as prime minister? or are you kind of ensure that you _ minister? or are you kind of ensure that you will — minister? or are you kind of ensure that you will get this kind of honour— that you will get this kind of honour at some point? that you will get this kind of honour at some oint? . . honour at some point? joanna, we are out of time- — honour at some point? joanna, we are out of time. thanks _ honour at some point? joanna, we are out of time. thanks so _ honour at some point? joanna, we are out of time. thanks so much - honour at some point? joanna, we are out of time. thanks so much to - honour at some point? joanna, we are out of time. thanks so much to you i both for reviewing tomorrow morning papers. that's it from the papers. goodbye. the information commissioner's office describes itself as the uk's independent authority set up to uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals for the past five years.

the commissioner has been elizabeth denham, and she leaves her post at the end of november. elizabeth, thank you very much indeed for speaking to the bbc�*s you've been information commissioner. since 2016, summer 2016, a particularly lively period in british politics. were you quite aware of what you were getting into, in terms of the sheer scale of the gargantuan power of, in particular, the californian tech companies that have been so much of your focus? well, i had been in the crosshairs of some of those big companies in my previous work in canada. but what i didn't know, and i think none of us knew, the massive acceleration of information, communications technologies, the take up of services online, and also the the size and scope of these companies that are bigger

than nation states. and the lobbying power that comes with it, because these companies have added trillions of dollars in their power. they spend some of that money trying to stop through lobbying, trying to stop people like you from regulating them. the other thing that i've learned in this job is that big tech not only has lobbying power, but they also have really deep pockets. so when it comes to litigating and these companies are definitely willing to litigate against public authorities like my office, deep pockets means that there's an inequity of arms when we're tackling these these big companies. so, i mean, itjust the acceleration of technology and especially with the pandemic, how much of our lives we now spend online, this has been a change that i couldn't have anticipated. where you had an early skirmish, which maybe became a battle when in 2017 you launched an investigation into your use of personal information and political influence. the scale of your investigation was completely unprecedented for a data protection authority

anywhere in the world. one element of your investigation, a big element, was the eu referendum. can you just remind us what your conclusion was on that specifically? we were looking at more than 30 organisations that were part of data enabled political campaigning. so that's why it was really important to look at the political parties. we needed to look at the data brokers who provide a lot of this data, the platform, particularly facebook and a company that was the centre of this crisis and these questions, which is cambridge analytica, a british company. but to distil it down, something that some people who have a kind of ambient awareness of this company may not know is that you concluded that in the end, it would be wrong to assume that data from cambridge analytica played any role, let alone a critical role in influencing people to vote leave. we could not find the evidence. and as a regulator, we have to be driven by the evidence that we found. we did find that cambridge analytica

had flirted with having a contractual relationship with the campaigns, even though there was some trials done with the use of data. but what we discovered, which was more important than anything, was we were able to pull back the curtain so that the public and media and civil society and our legislators understood about the power of data in political campaigning. and i think we stopped the train from leaving the station. so if we hadn't done that investigation, if we hadn't proven that all of these companies operating in an ecosystem needed to slow down in the use of that data or else we would feel the impact on oui’ democracy.

so as part of your investigation into came to find facebook, what was then the maximum fine at your disposal, which is half £1 million? facebook appealed and it did get quite legally complex because the upshot was that an agreement was reached and facebook agreed to pay the half million fine, but they did not admit liability. there's no admission of liability, as far as i understand. was a source of frustration to you at the time that your armoury was so limited that you could ask a company now worth over $1 trillion for half £1 million. itwas deeply frustrating because the signal i was trying to send is that we had never issued a fine for the maximum amount under our old regime. and if i had had more significant fines, then i would have used them against facebook because i think the contravention was extremely serious. now, facebook have made a huge number of changes to how they operate. they really, you know, they've made the ad library much more transparent. they've changed the privacy settings, the availability of privacy settings to users. what's your assessment of whether or not facebook is a safer place now?

i think the platform is safer. we also know that they've made some commitments to protect children on the platform, and that's definitely been a focus of my office. so, yes, facebook is a safer place to go for people, but some of the commitments feel like they're sticking plaster as opposed to real changes in the data governance and how the how the business model works. well, the accusation of one former facebook employee, goes further than what you're saying, which is that actually facebook ultimately, in her view, the bottom line is what counts? and they put profits before people, in her view, choose to work on the company's algorithmic products. and she was very damning in her evidence to a senate committee. facebook hides behind walls that keeps researchers and regulators from understanding the true dynamics of their system. facebook will tell you privacy means

they can't give you data. this is not true. let me put to you what mark zuckerberg said in response on facebook. of course, he says, "i think most of us presume facebook employees "just don't recognise the false picture of the company "that is being painted. and he said at the heart of these accusations is this idea that we prioritise profit over safety and well—being. that's just not true. we're looking really closely at what is publicly available right now from francis's testimony. so we're looking at that publicly available information. but i've also written to her to ask her for access to the full reports of her allegations, the full reports that she made to the securities and exchange commission. because what i want to do with that evidence is analyse it from the uk perspective. are these harms applicable in in the uk, especially through the lens of children? so as you know, we have rolled out a new children's code which specifies design consideration

to protect kids online. and i want to see if these allegations point to any contravention of uk law. and then i will take action against the enforcement of that dovetails with gdp, the general data protection regulation, which came into effect under your watch. how valuable and effective has gdpr been as a legal framework? the strength of the gdpr is that because there were high fines and new enforcement tools for the regulator, companies paid attention to it and data protection, instead of being just an i.t. issue, became a board level issue. and so i think companies took data protection seriously for the first time in 20 years. i want to briefly look at how the criminaljustice system is being influenced by the icao. during your time as commissioner last year, you released investigation into the use of mobile phone extraction by police forces

conducting criminal investigations in england and wales. those safeguards are now going to be enshrined in law, which a lot of people have put down as a big success for your office. what were you concerned about and what will this work mean in practice? the mobile phone extraction investigation and our work across the uk is one of the most important files that i've ever dealt with. when police forces started to require victims of sexual assault to upload everything on their mobile phones, put it in the hands of police and prosecutors, then that created a chill on women and men reporting sexual assault. and i think that was such a serious issue. so we needed to intervene and find a way to work with police so that their lines of inquiry had to be clear before they uploaded data from victims phones.

a lot of people think that the pandemic has led to a kind of massive data land grab by central government. how confident are you that that's necessary? data protection didn't stand in the way of the kind of reasonable public health surveillance measures that needed to be put in place. so we became very used to, um, a proximity app that was that was tracing and advising who we were coming in contact with. we got used to the idea of vaccine passports, which are important if you want to travel or attend live events. so we know that, on the other hand, the decommissioning of these systems. is something that we'll be looking at really carefully, and i'm draughting a report to parliament on covid measures and the importance of decommissioning or ensuring that when these systems are no longer needed, they're not going to be fluid, are not going to be continued by the government.

let me end by asking some quick questions. are you on any of the following social media platforms, facebook, now? no. tick tock? no. any social media platforms, no phones, communication to use. are you on whatsapp? no signal? yes. search engines which search engines use for for personal use. google search. yes. marks of being. yes, dutko. yes. big fan of go. why? because i think it was the first search engine that rolled out their services in a privacy by design way. have you ever had anyone deny you information by saying they can't give it to you due to data protection? always happens to me all the time. too often it's it's complete clap. i call them out on it.

you've been quite outspoken about specific proposals to reform the icao in its constitution. what are you worried about? some of the proposals in the government's data reform consultation? i agree with the new powers that are being suggested for the ico to deal with nuisance calls and nuisance tax, biggerfines for companies that get it wrong. i absolutely agree with that. i also agree with the review of the law. but an independent regulator is really important to trust in confidence. and if a regulator can be leaned on politically or if government directs the work of the regulator, then i think that undermines the trust that other countries are going to have with us and doing trade deals that people have in whether somebody is truly standing up for their rights. i think my work on data in political campaigns would have been almost impossible to do if i had to take my marching orders from government. elizabeth denham, the uk's information commissioner

for the past five years, thank you very much indeed. hello there. the warmest new year's eve on record has been followed provisionally by the warmest new year's day on record, with temperatures in the capital hitting above 16 celsius. as we head through the night it is good to be another mile one but perhaps not as mothers was last night. perhaps not as mothers was last niuht. . perhaps not as mothers was last ni. ht, ., , , , , perhaps not as mothers was last niuht. . ,, ,, night. clear spells but as you can see outbreaks _ night. clear spells but as you can see outbreaks of _ night. clear spells but as you can see outbreaks of heavy _ night. clear spells but as you can see outbreaks of heavy rain - night. clear spells but as you can i see outbreaks of heavy rain working in from the west or times. those temperatures of six to 12 degrees. as we head into tomorrow there's an area of weather will clear away from northern and eastern england. some drier weather following him northern and eastern england. some drier weatherfollowing him behind with some spells of some gentle rain will swing back into southwest england and wales and work eastward through the day for the northern island and will see some sunny spells yes but also some showers, some of which could be heavy. another pretty windy day out there but temperatures a shade down over there have been, nine to 13 degrees with the set to turn quite a lot

colder as we head towards the middle part of the week for that with that they will be some wintry showers a time and we stick with that somewhat chilly or feel as we head towards the week.

this is bbc news, i'm celia hatton. our top stories... south africa's president leads funeral tributes to archbishop desmond tutu, calling him the nation's moral compass. archbishop desmond tutu was without question a crusader in the struggle for freedom, forjustice, for equality and for peace. covid cases continue to surge across europe — we'll report on how the uk's health service is being put under increasing pressure. north korea's leader, kim jong—un, says the faltering economy will be the priority this year saying the country faces a "great life—and—death struggle". and after months separated by covid restrictions, we meet some of the families who've finally been reunited.