I think that the simple answer to this question is yes, you can ignore
Durant and you would not be alone if you did.
If you wanted to justify why, you could say that the Court of Appeal
decision is probably not in line with the EU Directive, that the EU were
taking action against the UK for not implementing the DPA properly as a
result, that the UK Government department responsible for Data Protection
has apparently said that Durant need only apply in similar situations, and
more than anything, you can justify it on the basis that it's good manners
and good customer service.
Tim Turner
Wigan Council
-----Original Message-----
From: Graeme Hawley [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 16 March 2006 14:16
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [data-protection] Durant - Can I ignore it?
Sorry to bring up Durant again.
I think that I have understood that Durant allows a data contoller to take a
very narrow definition of relevant paper filing systems (leaving aside the
FOI affected public authorities for the minute). But does Durant stop a
Data Contoller from applying a broader definition if they so wish. In other
words, just because Durant allows the pusillanimous organisation the
opportunity to discount folders with names on (but sinfully arranged in
chronological order - what's that all about?), does the Durant ruling mean
that a sturdier organisation is forbidden to go that gruelling extra mile,
and, for example, fish out an individuals personnel file from the
alphabetically arranged sequence of names in response to that individual's
request for access.
As it happens, I work for a public authority so am covered by FOISA and its
wider definition of relevant filing system anyway. Ironically, we do hold
information which I would like to apply a narrower definition to, but FOISA
means we cant. We hold upwards of 50 million pages of manuscripts in our
library collection, many of which contain personal data. Despite the best
efforts of our staff to catalogue these, my guess is that they would more
than classify as unstructured data not held in a relevant filing system.
But because of FOISA, they are covered by access legislation, and all of the
various problems this creates (such as the theoretical possibility that we
may have to spend an unlimited amount of time and resources searching for
the existance of a persons name in tens of thousands of paper documents -
remembering that the FOISA charging structure does not include time spent
establishing whether the information is held or not).
Is it me?
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