ALT Stephen Bonner, Deputy Commissioner: “This joint statement helps provide certainty and consistency across borders in how data protection applies to information people post online. Organisations must have a lawful reason for collecting and using people's data, even when it is publicly available.​ “Social media companies have obligations under UK data protection law to protect the information people post on their platforms.​ “We are seeing increased reports of mass data scraping from social media, and remind organisations that such incidents may require reporting to the ICO as a personal data breach.”​