NEWS – “without comment”
Using text from the ICO is permissible as it falls under the OGL (Open Government Licence – which you can find here if you are interested OGL v3.0). This is because using the text meets the aims of the Government to distribute information, so the more places it can be found, the better – but it must be attributed to the Gov so that people can find further resources, so for the ICO you would attribute with: Information Commissioners Office, [name and date of publication], licensed under the Open Government Licence.
You will note under the OGL that the licence does not include departmental or public sector organisation logos, crests and the Royal Arms except where they form an integral part of a document or dataset;
Using Logos is misleading because it does not further those aims, but rather implies that the document or website has been prepared or approved by the ICO.
The logo is a registered trademark (until 2030), its current form being registered since 2010.
For any ABI Members out there (I am not one), this is the same reason you cannot display the Law Society Logo on your documents or website, (which has changed from an ‘endorsement’ to the words ‘working with’) without including text that it is actually the ABI that is working with the Law Society and not you, because without that wording, it implys that you are endorsed / working with the LS, when in fact, you are not. I have seen the logo on some ABI members websites without the wording, and to the general public, this would be misleading in the same sense as sticking the ICO logo on the website. It implies a link or approval that does not exist.
Reproduced by kind consent of Stephen Rippingale-Peters, F.Inst.Pa
(s.peters1.palatine@members.mobilize.io)
Bradshaw Pearson Legal