The Labour Party has formally reported two members of Sir Keir Starmer's leadership campaign team to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), accusing them of hacking into the party's membership database. The allegations, which include claims of data-scraping, were passed to the watchdog on Thursday.
Sir Keir and his team have dismissed the accusations as "utter nonsense." In a letter to the party, the Labour leadership frontrunner denied any wrongdoing, insisting his team was investigating a means of penetrating the database—called Dialogue—with no intention to use it. Jenny Chapman, chair of the Starmer campaign, said no one on the team had the "capacity" to hack into any databases and "they wouldn't do it anyway."
The row has engulfed the campaign in bitter recrimination. Chapman suggested the allegations emerged only after her team alerted Labour officials last week to what they believed was a potential data protection breach by the rival campaign of Rebecca Long-Bailey. It emerged that Long-Bailey's campaign circulated links allowing volunteers access to Labour Party phone banks, which she said was done innocently.
Labour stated it had written to Sir Keir and his three leadership rivals to "remind them of their obligations under the law and to seek assurances that membership data will not be misused." The party said it takes its legal responsibilities for data protection extremely seriously. Under leadership rules, candidates who reach the final stage are entitled to receive party membership details, but must provide guarantees that the information will be stored securely and processed lawfully.
