Hi Su
Yes you are right,
It's plain and simple theft.
On the other hand the term "identity theft" is not theft at all, only the
removal of rubbish, say a credit card receipt from a rubbish bin is theft
not the use of the personal data.
Paul Ferguson
dataprotectionlaw&policy
82 Cecile Park
London N8 9AU UK
tel: +44 (0)20 8374 0710
fax: +44 (0)20 8374 1743
http://www.e-comlaw.com/EUMarketing
http://www.e-comlaw.com/IDTSummit
dataprotectionlaw&policy is published by Cecile Park Publishing Ltd.
Registered Office: 80-82 Regent Street London W1R 5PA
Registered Number: 2676976
on 1/4/05 3:22 PM, Su Goulding at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> A good Friday afternoon question.
>
> Is the act of going through another person's - or company's - rubbish and
> removing items illegal in itself?
>
> It seems that what you do afterwards with the items retrieved might well
> be. A quick web search turned up the case of King v DPP, where a stalker
> was penalised on the basis of the Prevention of Harrassment Act, but here
> there was no indication that the act of removal of items from household
> rubbish bags was an illegal act - unlike the resulting harrassment of his
> victim.
>
> I had a vague idea that rubbish continues to belong to you until it is
> removed by an approved authority, usually the council, but so far I
> haven't been able to confirm it. Maybe some of the fine brains out there
> know otherwise?
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> All archives of messages are stored permanently and are
> available to the world wide web community at large at
> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/data-protection.html
> If you wish to leave this list please send the command
> leave data-protection to [log in to unmask]
> All user commands can be found at : -
> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/help/commandref.htm
> Any queries about sending or receiving message please send to the list owner
> [log in to unmask]
> (all commands go to [log in to unmask] not the list please)
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
All archives of messages are stored permanently and are
available to the world wide web community at large at
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/data-protection.html
If you wish to leave this list please send the command
leave data-protection to [log in to unmask]
All user commands can be found at : -
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/help/commandref.htm
Any queries about sending or receiving message please send to the list owner
[log in to unmask]
(all commands go to [log in to unmask] not the list please)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|