This was The Slog’s view in the summer of 2019:

‘…the key words in the Act were (and still are – my italics) “that the data of victims, witnesses, suspects and perpetrators are protected in the context of a criminal investigation”. I’m sorry to harp on about this, but that really does represent, to even the most simplistic legal mind, an unadulterated carte blanche to bury information about the innocent and what became of them, while letting the guilty disappear scott-free.’

In other words, the DPA is just another version of ‘these cameras are here solely for your protection‘: the idea is to censor guilt, period.

I’ve written eleven posts on this subject since 2014; the Act that began under “Sir” Anthony St John Lynton Blair (Baron Public Bog) in 1998 Britain now stretches to bludgeoning all public media into blanking any media development anywhere…