The Information Commission’s new complaints handling system has booted out nearly 45% of complaints the regulator has received, according to official statistics, but other organisations are now facing a barrage of AI-driven grievances and requests.
The ICO triaging system means that complaints that fail to meet a “seriousness” threshold, or which lack wider public interest, do not go any further.
According to the ICO, it is only likely to investigate if the issue has caused, or risks causing, a high level of harm or if it has significantly affected, or is likely to affect, vulnerable people, including children.
Other criteria include a policy or practice has negatively affected a substantial number of people; if the complainant had no practical alternative but to provide their personal data — for example, to access an essential service; if intervention would produce meaningful improvements to the organisation’s practices more broadly; or the complaint aligns with the ICO’s “strategic priorities” or raises a new or high-profile issue where investigation would be in the public interest.
According to an FOI request made by Mishcon de Reya senior data protection specialist Jon Baines, “from February 25 2026 to October 13 2026 inclusive the ICO received 62,727 data protection complaints. Of these complaints, as of 13 October 2026, 28,073 had been closed at triage stage”.
While the ICO appears to be heading data protection complaints off “at the pass”, FOI requests are going through the roof due to a rise in so-called “AI clog”.
The phenomenon has been triggered by a flood of AI-generated complaints, letters and legal challenges that are massively increasing the workload of both public and private sector organisations, at a time of already stretched resources.
Before the widespread use of chatbots, the average length of complaints received by authorities was about two pages, the majority are now apparently 10 times longer.
The ICO has noted that AI-generated requests can be “very long, repetitive and contain unrelated comments or misdirected demands”, have a greater scope, and be written in a way that makes it harder to identify what information is being requested.
Despite this, the ICO cautions that requests that appear to be drafted using AI and contain inaccuracies still need to be answered by humans; adding to the burden.
Back in May, the regulator said that FOI teams were reporting higher volumes and greater complexity in requests, including cases where legislation had been misquoted or where significant clarification was required before a request could be processed.
The ICO has warned that, without practical support, the growing use of AI could place additional pressure on FOI teams, potentially contributing to delays, errors and further complaints.
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