Q for Questions About the Data Protection Act 1998 - Employer Obligations

Posted in : Essential Guide to Employment Contracts on 13 December 2011
Kiera Lee
Mills Selig
Issues covered:

Kiera Lee, writes:


1. Does the Data protection Act 1998 apply to employee information?


The Data protection Act 1998 (DPA) applies to processing of ‘personal data’. Personal data is defined in the DPA as that which relates to an individual who can be identified from the data. Any information giving names and addresses etc is clearly personal. It also includes ‘any expression of opinion about the individual’ and this means appraisal forms and references will also be considered personal data.

The question of what constitutes personal data has given rise to much debate and the Information Commissioner’s Office takes a very wide view despite a narrowing of the concept by the Court of Appeal in

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This article is correct at 06/08/2015
Disclaimer:

The information in this article is provided as part of Legal-Island's Employment Law Hub. We regret we are not able to respond to requests for specific legal or HR queries and recommend that professional advice is obtained before relying on information supplied anywhere within this article.

Kiera Lee
Mills Selig

The main content of this article was provided by Kiera Lee. Contact telephone number is 028 9024 3878 or email Kiera.Lee@millsselig.com

View all articles by Kiera Lee