Owen
I believe the police themselves have a wording which they use when
responding to a subject access request, where they are denying access to
(a)all or (b) part of a data subject's information.
(a)goes something like: "We have no information about you which we must
provide", ie either they have information which they are not prepared to
release or they have no information.
(b) is along the lines of "Enclosed is a copy of the information about you
which we must provide", ie either this is all the information or this is all
the information they are prepared to release.
I believe this deliberate ambiguity is used to satisfy Section 29(1) of the
DP Act.
Of course, if the police use the standard form which cites Section 29 and
gives reasonable grounds for you to provide the information, there is
nothing to stop you helping them with their enquiries. Is there?
Regards
Stuart
-----Original Message-----
From: Owen Parry [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 12/02/2001 11:42
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: To be or not to be
One of my users has asked the following question:
When I am asked by the police to confirm whether or not a person was in
attendance as a student and cannot actually find the person in our records,
can I inform the police that I have no record of that person? Obviously I
have no way of contacting the person to gain their consent.
My own advice was that he/she should refuse to confirm or deny the existence
of records until the police provided the correct paperwork, because If
he/she confirmed no records in one case, it therefore suggests that in other
cases records may exist by failing to confirm no records.
This sounded a bit Kafaesque as I wrote it so I thought I'd seek any
thoughts colleagues may have.
Owen Parry
Pennaeth Cyfrifiadura Gweinyddol/
Head of Administrative Computing
Prifysgol Cymru/
University of Wales
Tel: (029) 2038 2656 Ffacs/Fax: (029) 2039 6040
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