NJ: What are you obliged to do under the Data Protection Act? NM: The first obligation under the Data Protection Act, if you’re processing information about people, is that you have to notify – which means register – with the Information Commissioner. If you don’t do that, not only is it a criminal offence, but it’s highly visible. Anyone can quickly see whether you’re registered or not.
And the second thing which is not so easy is to comply with what’s called the Eight Data Protection Principles. This applies to businesses established in the UK; so if you’re not in the UK, it may not cover you unless you have equipment here that processes data or you have some sort of representative or agent here, in which case it could still cover you.
NJ: The Data Protection Principles state that “data must be processed fairly and lawfully” – can you explain how to go about this? NM: There are two words there and there are two separate concepts: Obviously data has to be processed lawfully but there are lots of reasons why it might be unlawful. Human rights for example in the employment arena; if you’re monitoring employee’s emails, it could be unlawful and so therefore unlawful under the Data Protection Act as well.
If you’ve got information about someone on your database, you can’t lawfully have it there and do anything with it unless first of all you’ve registered with Information Commissioner, secondly you’ve got some legitimate ground to be processing it. One of the main grounds is that you have the data subject’s consent to the processing.
NJ: How do I go about getting consent? NM: Consent has to be freely given, specific and informed. This means that the data subject must know who you are and how you plan to use the data. So, if you have a privacy policy, this is the best place to provide all this information.
HIT ME! HOW TO GET YOUR BUSINESS TO PUNCH ITS WEIGHT 0NLINE 51
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