Paul
I would be inclined to take advice from a lawyer who knows the Planning laws
on this one - it all hinges on whether the same provision exists as for the
electoral register, ie the register must be made available to anyone
requesting a copy, and the Electoral Registration Officer may make a charge
for the supply. If such a provision does not exist, you may be on safe
ground in opposing the disclosure, but I can't be optimistic - as
Leigh-Pollitt & Mullock say in "The Data Protection Act Explained", Section
34 is "an exemption which, if fully exploited, could drive a coach and
horses through the good intentions of the Act....For those individuals who
have taken great care to tick opt-out boxes or to register with the Mailing
Preference Service, it can be particularly galling if their information is
made available in this way".
Regards
Stuart
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Couldrey [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 28/11/2000 11:12
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Planning Register disclosures
A question for all the local authority people out there (and perhaps the HE
people will find the discussion useful). The planning department are
requesting that they send the register of planning applications to an
Insurance company, for that company to offer services etc.
The department are claiming that s.34 exemption for disclosure i.e.. the
list has to be made available to the public etc, and as such s.27 covers
further disclosures. Personally I argue not, as s. 34 states available to
public, is the company legally to be viewed as the public? Equally these
exemptions quoted mention nothing about Direct Marketing s.11, surely this
is Direct Marketing.
As such I feel that the principle of fairly obtaining the data is breached
as the data subjects are unaware of the secondary use of the data, and this
purpose is not in the notified entry, so 2nd principle problems too.
Any thoughts??
Paul Couldrey
Data Protection Officer
Wolverhampton Council
'the views expressed are personal and may not necessarily reflect those of
Wolverhampton Council, unless explicitly stated otherwise'
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