The UK's Data Protection Act (DPA) does not implement European law properly, according to the European Commission which is investigating problems in the UK's implementation of 11 of the Data Protection Directive's articles, almost a third of the entire directive.
Using freedom of information legislation, OUT-LAW.COM has learned that 11 articles are the subject of two commission letters to the UK Government, even though the Government has refused to provide these details to Parliament.
In June 2005, Labour MP Harry Cohen asked the Government exactly what problems the commission had identified when it said that the DPA was a defective implementation of the directive.
Parliamentary undersecretary Bridget Prentice refused to answer.
“We currently have no plans to disclose the detail of those discussions as the formal Commission investigation process is still taking place,” she said. “If the Government were to disclose the information requested, it would prejudice the negotiating process between the UK and the Commission and so prejudice UK interests”.
The articles of the directive which the commission claims have not been implemented properly are articles 2, 3, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 22, 23, 25 and 28 – just under a third of the directive's 34 articles.
These articles relate to:
- the
definitions used in the Directive (e.g. the meaning of personal data); - the
scope of the Directive's application to manual files; - the
conditions when sensitive personal data can be processed; - the
fair processing notices give to individuals; - the
rights granted to data subjects; - the
application of exemptions from these rights; - the
ability of individuals to seek a remedy when there is a breach; - the
liability of organisations for breaches of data protection law; - the
transfer of personal data outside European Union; - and
the powers of the Information Commissioner.
Full story on The Register.
Has the UK Government deliberately watered down the Data Protection Act in order to build the massive big brother databases, and allowed them to collect DNA with virtually no recourse such as in the David Mery case.
Couple this with the destruction of the OGC gateway reviews on ID Cards, NIR and NPfIT in defiance of the Information Commissioners ruling, obviously hiding something about those databases that it does not want the public to know, then we begin to suspect that Government are not acting in the public interest, but is instead building a one party authoritarian state under the guise of lip service to the EU.
NuLab – Destroying Britain from the inside out.













