Giving up any pretence of political independence <grin>, someone wrote:
> or is it because [the Conservative Party] can't comply with
> principle no 4 and keep personal data accurate and up to date
which misses the key point made by Brian H. Donohoe, speaking in Westminster
Hall on the afternoon of 31-Oct-2001:
'The Act places Members' privileges in question. More importantly,
constituents, who have rights of representation, are being denied their
rights. I am increasingly being asked to get constituents to sign waivers.
They must be signed before I am able to obtain information, which hampers
the representations that I can make on their behalf.'
He then went on to give two examples that illustrate how public sector
organisations who are trying to comply with the Data Protection Act are, in
fact, denying proper representation to individuals by insisting on receiving
signed waivers before discussing sensitive information with Members of
Parliament. The more extreme of the examples runs:
'The Scottish Prison Service has decided that, under the 1998 Act, it also
needs a waiver. In this hypothetical case I shall call the constituent
Jimmy, which is appropriate. Jimmy telephones me from prison and asks me to
get him released for one day so that he can attend his aunt's funeral. I
phone the prison governor and say, "Why won't you let Jimmy out?" The
governor replies, "I am very sorry, but that is sensitive information. You
must get him to fill in a waiver." I say to him, "You get that done." He
replies, "No, you must do it."'
'To do that, I must send a letter. The post in the west of Scotland is not
great, so it takes three days for the letter to arrive, three days for it to
go through the prison service and another three days for it to get back to
me, by which time the dear aunt with whom Jimmy stayed for 25 years has been
buried. That frustrates my rights of representation on behalf of that
individual, regardless of his position. Bureaucracy is denying my
constituents proper representation, which was not the 1998 Act's intention.'
See
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmhansrd/cm011031/halltext
/11031h04.htm#11031h04_head0 for more details.
--
Graham Smith
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