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Christopher Graham delivered Liverpool John Moores University's prestigious 125th Roscoe lecture yesterday, talking about the role of the Information Commissioner and broader information rights issues.

He followed in the footsteps of previous speakers in the lecture series, including Michael Morpurgo and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Thank you for those kind words of introduction. 

It is a great pleasure and a privilege to address you this afternoon. 

I have been asked to reflect on the role of the Information Commissioner.

The Information Commissioner upholds information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals. To list the legislation for which I am responsible – there’s the Freedom of Information Act (10 years in operation this month) and the associated access to information regulations – the Environmental Information Regulations, and Inspire Regulations. And one, the Data Protection Act and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, known as PECR. (The Inspire regs are about spacial data and PECR are the rules under which we can take action against the nuisance call and spam e-mail operators.)

But simply to list the list doesn’t really answer the question the little boy asked his mother on encountering Randolph Churchill – ‘Mummy, what’s that man for?’

So what is the Information Commissioner for? And what, for that matter, are information rights for?

Over the past six weeks those are the questions that have been asked by the Ministry of Justice - the Whitehall Department responsible for Freedom of Information and Data Protection. The Information Commissioner’s Office – the ICO – is undergoing a process called Triennial Review. 

Click here to read the full speech from Christopher's