20th July 2000
13.In order to protect information supplied to the BBC under the Act against further disclosure, section 3 makes it an offence for certain persons to disclose such information without “lawful authority”, an expression defined in subsection (5). The offence may be committed by either−
under subsection (1), a person (“a recipient”) who has received the information in question: this could, for example, be a contractor providing services to the BBC (since, as explained in paragraph 5 above, a “person” can include a company); or
under subsection (2), a person who is or has been employed by a recipient, or engaged (e.g. as a consultant, rather than an “employee” in the strict legal sense) to provide services to a recipient.
14.It is not an offence to disclose information in a summary form, such as a statistical analysis, such that no information relating to a particular person can be ascertained from it (subsection (3)(a)), or to disclose it (subsection (3)(b)) in circumstances where the information in question had already been made public with lawful authority. Also, the person charged has a defence if he can show that, even though in fact the disclosure was made without lawful authority or was of information that had not previously been made public with such authority, he believed that one or other of those conditions was met, and had no reason to believe that they were not met: subsection (4).
15.Subsection (6) provides that any person found guilty of an offence under this provision is liable−
on conviction in a magistrates’ court, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or a fine not exceeding the “statutory maximum” (currently £5000); or
on conviction in the Crown Court, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or an unlimited fine or both.