About us

Up until 17 January 2010 we were called the Information Tribunal (previously called Data Protection Tribunal) and were originally set up to hear appeals under the Data Protection Act 1984. We continued to hear appeals after the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) came into effect, but were renamed the Information Tribunal when we were allocated responsibility for hearing other information appeals under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR). We are now part of the First–tier Tribunal in the General Regulatory Chamber and are referred to as the First–tier Tribunal (Information Rights).

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The Principal Judge of the Information Rights jurisdiction in the First-tier Tribunal is Professor John Angel and there are eleven other Judges, namely:

All our Tribunal Judges are all solicitors or barristers with at least 7 years professional experience.

There are currently 34 non legal members of the Tribunal. The appointment of non legal Tribunal members is based on their experience in matters we deal with, for example, because they have worked with data controllers or have represented data subjects.

User Group

The aim of the Information Rights User Group is to provide an opportunity for you to discuss matters relating to our, non case specific, operations and processes with representatives from our judiciary and administration. This helps to identify better ways for us to improve the services we provide to users. Our next User Group Meeting is taking place on 11th March 2010, if you would like further information please contact Mel Porter via informationtribunal@tribunals.gsi.gov.uk

Please note that expenses to and from User Group meetings will not be reimbursed by the First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights).

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