When a Company Ignores Your Data Request
8 April 2026 · Mary Molloy Solicitors
Silence is the most common infringement in data protection — not villainy, usually just an inbox where your request died. The law does not care about the reason: one month, extendable only with notice, and then the failure is complete. What you do next determines whether the silence costs you or them.
The follow-up that creates the record
One short letter: the date of the original request, the statutory deadline that passed, no extension notice received, a final period of fourteen days. Attach the original. You are not really writing to persuade — you are completing the evidence: request, deadline, default, opportunity to cure, continued default. That file is what makes every later step easy.
The complaint that writes itself
An access request with no response and no extension notice is the cleanest infringement the DPC sees — dates and documents, nothing to argue. File the complaint with the chronology and attachments in order, and state the outcome sought: compliance and a finding. A striking share of ignored requests are answered within weeks of the organisation hearing from the regulator.
When it matters enough for court
Where the withheld data feeds a live dispute — an employment case, an insurance row — or the refusal itself causes damage, legal escalation earns its place: a solicitor's letter restating the request with the consequences attached resolves most standoffs, and a data protection action is available for the remainder. The strategic point: an organisation that ignored you twice is telling you how it will treat the underlying dispute. The request was the cheap test.
Read more in our main guide: Data Access Requests: Getting a Copy of Your Data · or back to the blog.
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