Data Protection Act

As a business you have the responsibility of safeguarding any personal information you may have on other individuals.

Regardless of the size of your business, few if any, will be exempt from the obligations of the Data Protection Act 1998. 

Briefly, the Act covers any information that relates to a living individual which is held on a computer or any other storage device including smartphones. Any information that can identify a individual is covered by the act, this may include information such as name, address, date of birth and opinions about the individual.

Holding and processing information about individuals who are customers, employees, suppliers, clients or other members of the public, needs to be record on a register held by the Information Commissioners Office (ICO), this is called ‘notification’. 

A useful guide for small businesses can be found here.

To verify that you need to be compliant, the ICO has a simple self assessment tool which can be found here.

This video provides an entertaining overview of the Act and highlights issues than can occur.

 The official web site for the ICO can be found here http://www.ico.org.uk/ it has a wealth of information for both businesses and consumers.

 Further Information