Principles of Data Protection

There are eight principles put in place by the Data Protection Act 1998 to make sure that your information is handled properly. They say that data must be:

1. fairly and lawfully processed;
2. processed for limited purposes;
3. adequate, relevant and not excessive;
4. accurate;
5. not kept for longer than is necessary;
6. processed in line with your rights;
7. secure; and,
8. not transferred to countries without adequate protection.

By law data controllers have to keep to these principles.

1. fairly and lawfully processed;

Achieved through collective decision-making and built-in compliance with Data Protection Law.

2. processed for limited purposes;

Database has one well-defined purpose that is clear to all users and has been developed in collaboration with Information Commissioner.

3. adequate, relevant and not excessive;

Guidelines within the application point the way for users to record adequate information. Further pointers are provided to ensure that information is relevant only to the needs of Council staff. Regular reviews will revisit written information about individuals to reassess the relevance of the information.

4. accurate;

Guidelines will help users to record only accurate information.

5. not kept for longer than is necessary;

Regular six-monthly (or more frequent) reviews will remove any individuals from the database who are no longer considered to be an ongoing risk. All information, once removed, is permanently deleted.

6. processed in line with your rights;

The database has been set up in accordance with Data Protection Law.

7. secure; and,

A wide range of security measures is present within the application to prevent any unauthorised access. Security has been built in from the very beginning of the desiign process.

8. not transferred to countries without adequate protection.

Data will not be manually passed to other countries. Furthermore, security measures in place prevent the accidental "leakage" of information.