Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!spool.mu.edu!think.com!mintaka!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard!sunic!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aiai!aipna!cstr!rick From: rick@cstr.ed.ac.uk (Rick Innis) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Database Registration and privacy acts Message-ID: Date: 15 May 91 10:12:41 GMT References: <1991May14.040427.10453@looking.on.ca> Sender: news@aipna.ed.ac.uk Organization: CSTR, University of Edinburgh Lines: 32 In-reply-to: brad@looking.on.ca's message of 14 May 91 04:04:27 GMT In article <1991May14.040427.10453@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: There have been a number of interesting points raised recently in news.admin and comp.risks that EFF hangers-on might want to look at. They involve some British laws about databases. The law in question is the Data Protection Act. This was a piece of legislation enacted to fulfill the requirements of a European Commission Directive on access to and security of data - in fact all data, not merely that stored on computer. EC Directives state a number of requirements which member states of the EEC are required to enact in law. The exact wording of the law is up the individual member states; hence the effect can be different from one state to another. Typically, the British Government, obssessed with secrecy, enacted this in such a way as to make it extremely difficult for indiciduals to access information held about them, and left plenty of boltholes for keeping information protected. (For example, it's very difficult to find out what's on a police computer, if I recall rightly.) Perhaps there's someone out there who knows the DPA more thouroughly than I do, who'd like to comment? --Rick. -- JANET: rick@uk.ac.ed.cstr | Rick Innis, CSTR, Internet: rick@cstr.ed.ac.uk | University of Edinburgh, UUCP: ..mcsun!ukc!cstr!rick | Edinburgh, Scotland EH1 1HN. Thought for the day: If you were happy every day of your life, you wouldn't be a human being - you'd be a game show host.