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Dear Colleagues I am the archivist for the National Trust for Scotland, and am responsible for Data Protection compliance within the organisation. The Trust is a member of Scottish Environment Link, an umbrella grouping of Scottish environmental organisations. These agencies have access to the services of a parliamentary officer, funded by the NLCB to ensure that environmental concerns are well highlighted in the Scottish Parliament. They have now invested in, and are using, the LobbyContact database. I believe this is an off the peg system. It appears that you can enter information on an MSP, researcher or political contact into the database and this can be accessed by all LINK members. Has anyone on the list come across this before and what are your thoughts? In order to make our own lobbying more effective the Trust's Parliamentary team would like to canvas our governing Council and Board of Directors to see what contact they have had with MSPs and what was discussed etc. This may involve the completion of a form stating with whom they have had contact, in what context and what issues were discussed or covered. This may feed to the LINK LobbyContact. I have expressed an understanding that although this may be a great idea, technically it is against the Fair Processing Code as MSPs and others, although they are public figures, may not necessarily expect their dinner conversation to be noted down and passed on, and have not, therefore, given their consent. I would appreciate any advice on the ins and outs of gathering such information and especially on the 'correctness' of my interpretation before taking this further. Thank you all! Carolynn Bain Carolynn Bain - Archivist Tel: 0131 243 9524 The National Trust for Scotland Fax: 0131 243 9599 Wemyss House Email: [log in to unmask] 28 Charlotte Square URL: http://www.nts.org.uk Edinburgh EH2 4ET %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%