Held, appeal dismissed. On an appeal against a monetary penalty notice brought pursuant to section 163 of the Data Protection Act 2018, the First-tier Tribunal was required to consider for itself whether the statutory conditions for imposing a monetary penalty notice were met, and if so, whether it was appropriate to impose a monetary penalty notice at all and, if so, in the amount set by the commissioner. Since the application of strict burdens of proof might prevent the tribunal from discharging its responsibility to decide the facts for itself and exercise any discretion afresh, in section 163 appeal proceedings the burden of proof fell properly to be described as of secondary importance. Even if the monetary penalty notice amounted to a criminal charge for the purposes of article 6 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, a formal evidential burden was not required to be placed on the commissioner. Furthermore, it was an integral aspect of the tribunal’s role that careful attention was paid to the decision of the commissioner and the reasons given for the decision, the fact that a tribunal paid careful attention to the reasons for a particular regulatory decision would not, without more, indicate that a tribunal had failed to make its own findings on disputed matters of fact or unthinkingly adopted the commissioner’s assessment of the merits. Moreover, in conducting the appeal, the tribunal was not required to resolve disputed matters of fact to the criminal standard of proof, since, in particular (i) although a monetary penalty notice might impose a significant financial penalty, that was not of itself sufficient to bring monetary penalty notice proceedings within the category of proceedings which, although formally classified as civil proceedings, were required to apply the criminal standard of proof to determine disputed matters of fact, (ii) the fact that the civil standard of proof was not expressed to apply in a particular regulatory context did not evince a Parliamentary understanding that, in the absence of such provision, the common law would default top an application of the criminal standard and (ii) even if monetary penalty notice proceedings amounted to the determination of a criminal charge for the purposes of article 6 of the Convention, the fair trial guarantees would not mandate the application of the criminal standard of proof. Accordingly, the First-tier Tribunal had not erred in its approach to the section 163 appeal (paras 158, 159, 162, 165, 168, 171, 176, 177, 180, 184).