ICO Video Helps Care-Experienced People Understand Their Care Record Rights
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has launched a new video – My right to better records – to help care-experienced people understand their rights when it comes to accessing personal care records.
The three-minute explainer video, part of the Better Records Together campaign, sets out in clear and accessible language how anyone with care experience can make a right of access request, often called a Subject Access Request (SAR) – a legal right under UK data protection law – to ask for a copy of their personal information. It explains what a SAR is, how to make one and what to expect once a request is submitted.
The ICO hopes social care professionals, and organisations supporting people with care experience, will use the video as a resource to support conversations with the care-experienced people they work with.
The scale of the problem
The video comes in response to research from the ICO which found that people trying to access their care records are being systematically let down. Nearly nine in ten (89%) of those who accessed their records were left with questions or concerns, over two thirds (71%) experienced poor communication from their local authority, and 69% said the process took longer than expected – with some waiting up to sixteen years.
Jenny Brotchie, Principal, Scottish Affairs, said: “For too many care-experienced people, knowing that they have the right to access their records is just the beginning. Navigating the process can feel complex and overwhelming, particularly for those who may have had difficult experiences with the very institutions that hold their information. This video is about making sure that right can be realised – not just in law, but in practice.
“Social workers and practitioners play a vital role in helping people understand and exercise these rights. We hope this video will be a useful resource to help inform conversations between professionals and care-experienced individuals as they navigate the process, and that the social care community will share it widely through their casework and peer support networks.”
Building on sector-wide commitment
The video’s launch follows an ICO briefing held last month for over 50 social care leaders across the UK, in which local authorities and health and social care trusts were asked to publicly commit to improving how care records are created, handled and accessed by implementing the Better Records Together care records standards.
Better Records Together, which launched in December, aims to drive sector-wide transformation in how care records are handled throughout their lifecycle — from creation through to access and disclosure.
As part of the campaign, the ICO also ran a UK-wide supervision pilot running across 2025 and 2026, monitoring the performance of 19 organisations to drive improvements.
Where necessary, the ICO will prioritise enforcement action against organisations with persistent delays in SAR responses and a lack of measures to reduce harm and address delays. Organisations can take steps to improve their performance and support people to access their story by implementing the Better Records Together care records standards.
The regulator has already taken enforcement action across the UK, including reprimands issued to Glasgow City Council and City of Edinburgh Council in February 2025, an enforcement notice to Bristol City Council in September 2025 for child social care data delays, and an £18,000 fine to Scottish charity Birthlink in July 2025 for destroying approximately 4,800 personal records.
Local authorities and social care providers that have not yet engaged with Better Records Together are encouraged to visit the campaign webpage to access free resources and find out how to pledge their support.
