At 11:16 am +0100 6/7/01, GOULDING, Susan - NC wrote:
>The Public Interest Disclosure ("Whistleblowing") Act 1998 offers protection
>to employees who "whistleblow" i.e. bring to management's attention
>instances of wrongdoing, including actual, attempted or suspected fraud. I
>don't know whether this would apply cross-organisationally, as in your
>example.
The Public Interest Disclosure Act protects employees from being
dismissed or otherwise penalised by _their employer_ for making a
'protected disclosure', in certain circumstances. It would not
protect anyone from action by _someone else_ (eg the data subject or
the Information Commissioner) for breach of a DP requirement.
At 11:32 am +0100 6/7/01, Broom, Doreen wrote:
>Just a general enquiry on the "Whistleblowing" Act, would this Act protect a
>person within an organisation who was disclosing to the press something
>which they felt should be within the public domain
>
>D
The Act provides greatest protection for disclosures made to the
employer or to prescribed regulatory bodies. A disclosure to others,
including the press, might be protected in certain circumstances.
* It must relate to certain types of malpractice (ie it tends to show
evidence of a crime, breach of a legal requirement, miscarriage of
justice, risk to health, safety or environment, or cover up of any of
these).
* The worker must be acting in good faith and reasonably believe the
information to be true
* The disclosure must not be for personal gain
* The worker must either (a) have previously raised the matter with
his employer or a regulator, or (b) reasonably believe that by doing
so he would be victimised or the employer would destroy evidence of
the problem
* The disclosure to the person to whom it was made must be reasonable
in all the circumstances, taking account of the identity of the
recipient, the severity of the problem, any obligation of
confidentiality, the adequacy of any response by the employer to
previous attempts to get something done (and other matters specified
in the act).
Where the allegation relates to an "exceptionally serious" failure,
the requirement that the matter first be raised with the employer or
a regulator, unless there is good reason not to, is waived.
Maurice Frankel
Campaign for Freedom of Information
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If you wish to leave this list please send the command
leave data-protection to [log in to unmask]
All user commands can be found at : -
www.jiscmail.ac.uk/user-manual/summary-user-commands.htm
all commands go to [log in to unmask] not the list please!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|