Data Subject Access Requests

[mc_blue]

Hi all,

I have made a data subject access request and was charged £10 for this.

The company concerned advised me of the following:

In respect of the invoice, we apologise for the incorrect reference to VAT. This was an administrative error and I can confirm that the VAT described has not, and will not, be claimed by the company.
I challenged the company as I should not have been charged VAT. There has been no offer to return the VAT to me so not sure if this gentleman understands how VAT works?

It is not our practice to issue invoices in respect of the £10 administration fee and your request was the first one received by the company.
Does the admin fee not constitute to revenue/sales and therefore there should be an invoice attached to it?

The company concerned is large.

I would appreciate some advice particularly on the second point. I run an SME myself and anything that we sell has an invoice attached to it as it is revenue for the business. Just wanted to confirm my understanding is correct here.

Many thanks

[48k]

mc_blue said:

The company concerned advised me of the following:

In respect of the invoice, we apologise for the incorrect reference to VAT. This was an administrative error and I can confirm that the VAT described has not, and will not, be claimed by the company.
I challenged the company as I should not have been charged VAT. There has been no offer to return the VAT to me so not sure if this gentleman understands how VAT works?

The maximum they are allowed to charge for subject access requests is £10. The DPA says: "This subject access fee is merely a nominal sum to cover the expenses of complying with the statute and is not consideration as there is no supply for VAT purposes".

So you should have an invoice for £10 with no VAT on it. And in terms of the company accounts it's not classed as sales revenue - the company is not selling the data subjects' data back to it.