[No. 6.] S.12 Data Protection (Amendment) Act 2003. [2003.] (a) by reason of special circumstances, is of opinion that a prohibition specified in a prohibition notice should be complied with urgently, and (b) includes a statement to that effect in the notice, subsections (10)(d) and (11) of this section shall not apply in relation to the notice but the notice shall contain a statement of the effect of the provisions of section 26 (other than subsection (3)) of this Act and shall not require compliance with the prohibition before the end of the period of 7 days beginning on the date on which the notice is served. (13) The Commissioner may cancel a prohibition notice and, if he or she does so, shall notify in writing the person on whom it was served accordingly. (14) (a) This section applies, with any necessary modifications, to a transfer of information from the State to a place outside the State for conversion into personal data as it applies to a transfer of personal data from the State to such a place. (b) In paragraph (a) of this subsection ‘information’ means information (not being data) relating to a living individual who can be identified from it. (15) A person who, without reasonable excuse, fails or refuses to comply with a prohibition specified in a prohibition notice shall be guilty of an offence.’’. Prior checking of processing by Commissioner. 13.—The following section is inserted into the Act of 1988 after section 12: ‘‘12A.—(1) This section applies to any processing that is of a prescribed description, being processing that appears to the Commissioner to be particularly likely— (a) to cause substantial damage or substantial distress to data subjects, or (b) otherwise significantly to prejudice the rights and freedoms of data subjects. (2) The Commissioner, on receiving— (a) an application under section 17 of this Act by a person to whom section 16 of this Act applies for registration in the register and any prescribed information and any other information that he or she may require, or (b) a request from a data controller in that behalf, shall consider and determine— (i) whether any of the processing to which the application or request relates is processing to which this section applies, 30