Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to ensure that social media companies are complying fully with the Data Protection Act 1998 and associated General Data Protection Regulations.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is responsible for regulating compliance with data protection legislation.

There are a number of tools available to the ICO to ensure compliance. These include criminal prosecution, non-criminal enforcement and audit. The Information Commissioner also has the power to serve a monetary penalty notice on a data controller. Further details of the actions which can be taken can be found on www.ico.org.uk.

The government's Data Protection Bill will strengthen legislation around data protection and give the Commissioner tougher powers to ensure that organisations comply.