I've been looking at the Application of the Act to manual filing systems in the light of the definition of Sec 1(1) of the Act:
"relevant filing system" means any set of information relating to individuals to the extent that, although the information is not processed by means of equipment operating automatically in response to instructions given for that purpose, the set is structured, either by reference to individuals or by reference to criteria relating to individuals, in such a way that specific information relating to a particular individual is readily accessible.
There are terms with definitions which trouble me here - readily accessible, structured and specific. In debate in Committee, George Howarth for the Government said the following:
"Highly structured systems, such as card index systems, come clearly within the definition. Equally clearly outside it are wholly unstructured collections of paper, such as unsorted bundles of papers that are stored in loose-leaf folders, and policy or topic files, which only incidentally contain references to individuals. As Members of Parliament, we could all imagine case work files that related to a problem in our Constituency. They might, by definition, involve individuals, but would not be specifically about them.
"In the middle is a rather greyer area. An example would be a file, say a personnel file, about a named individual. Let us say that it was a general file about the person concerned, which contained all of his or her employment records from day one to the present in date order. Such a file would not be caught if there were no index to the individual documents or no other way of gaining ready access to them. It would, however, be caught if the papers were indexed. It might also be caught in part if specific papers were flagged in some way. A personnel file that was limited to specific information about an individual might also be caught for example, a file in date order that was confined to a person's health record or attendance record."
George Howarth in Standing Committee, 12 May 1998
This would appear to suggest that a badly organised file is not covered but a well-organised one is although it might 'readily' be possible to derive the same information from both. Let us leave aside 'readily accessible' as something which will have to be defined by the courts. Is the minister right that individual files about individuals will not be covered by the Act if they have no internal structure?
And what is specific? The Directive (Article 2(a)) introduces the term in its definition of 'personal data' as "any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person ('data subject'); an identifiable person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity". This suggests to me that what is at issue is information specific to that individual rather than specific information about that individual, the narrower definition suggested by Mr Howarth. This could rest on the definition of a 'personal data filing system' ('filing system') which "shall mean any structured set of personal data which are accessible according to specific criteria, whether centralized, decentralized or dispersed on a functional or geographical basis" - which could be read to mean that each file must be structured but I would argue is satisfied by being able to access the subset of data relevant to a particular individual.
Is there a conflict here? Or am I missing the point? [Feel free to put me out of my misery off-list if the latter]
Paul Hubert
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