----- Original Message -----
From: "Brenda Scourfield" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 11:17 AM
Subject: [data-protection] Signatures
Are signatures personal data ? If we provide copies of letters under FOI
or DP, should the signature of the officer or person be blanked out ?
One of our officers is concerned that his signature could be copied and
used fraudulently.
Nick's reply:
One question would be is the signature already in the public domain - in
which case, his concern is understandable but an FoI question would not
elicit any more information than is otherwise available. (for instance do
documents with his signature go to Planning Committee etc?)
If you really wanted a copy of a council officer's signature then you write
to them and presumably the response will have their signature.
One could presumably argue that if a particular officer had a problem with
this then it doesn't seem to me blanking out their signature would remove
any information - after all it would have their name in print.
I would have thought that this was the nature of being a public officer ie
documents with your imprint on get published - if you don't want that you
should be working in the public sector.
But equally any postman might say that they don't want to give their
signature for the same reason.
Nick Landau
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