If it's a public authority it will be governed by FOI as well - which
applies subject access rights to unstructured files, so no easy escape route
there, I'd have thought.
Su Goulding
Legal Officer, NSPCC
020-7825-1393
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-----Original Message-----
From: Hubert, Paul [STU] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 13 June 2001 10:52
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Structured files
Paul Ticher suggested:
... an alternative approach might be to have a paper file recording
complaints and outcomes, which is there to demonstrate that you have
followed your procedures, but one that is not 'structured' so that you can
readily find specific information about particular individuals (definitions
in s.1) - i.e. perhaps it's just in date order. In this case the complaints
log may well not be personal data. If it's not personal data, it's not
covered by the Act, so is not available to subject access.
This to me looks like an evasion rather than an escape route. Is it a
legitimate method for a public authority to keep information on people?
There may be Human Rights Act implications to doing it. And how unstructured
does a file have to be before it escapes? And if so, will it then have any
valid use at all? If it's stored in date order, you have a way of relating
the date to the individual and you can within a few minutes find the
information relating to the case of the individual, isn't it structured
enough? It seems to me likely that the reason Paula wants to keep it
involves relating it to the individual.
Paul Hubert
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