** Reply to note from Ian Welton <[log in to unmask]> Mon, 22 Jul 2002 09:41:37 +0100
Ian, you are not the first person to think "I only think hardware or software"
.. ehmm no. I was talking people and not systems. Systems (bugs aside) are
predictable, humans are not.
Whilst email is held in the system (whatever one means by system) email will be
searchable and disproportionate effort cannot be claimed. Unfortunatelly you are
dealing with humans which are less predictable as to what actions they might
take.
Thinking of a university environment (but it should be applicable to LAs,
any modern organisations etc) here are some simple steps/questions then:
1. Does a user (sender or recipient) of email have the right to delete messages?
2. Should the system delete such messages or should they be permanently archived
(following a user's DELETE action?
3. Should the system keep any logs of email transactions?
4. Should a user be able to take email home (eg. printed) or access work email from his/her home
computer? ...
and answers:
1. Yes ... unless there is a SAR about.
2. They should be deleted.
3. I would have hoped no, but because of RIPA the org. will be expected to retain
logs of transactions but not actual content (for 7 years ... or whatever it was).
4. Yes.
How will the system (or the managers of the system) know that some email is
sitting on a user's home computer? How will they know that the user put it on a
floppy and took it home or even that it is on a floppy in the user's office.
I have seen users who keep absolutely everything and I understand why they might
be tempted to copy the data somewhere else once their "system" space becomes
full, as was the original question.
So a reality test. As a small to medium uni, we have 3-3500 staff and for
good measure 12000 students. I would guesstimate that 2000-2500 staff have
permanent access to a computer (ie. their own work computer). Even if all the
computers were searchable from a central point it would take a very long time to
search them. Can you imagine going out to every office looking for CDs or
floppies that might have data on them, what about work data at home. And if
students are involved the have to save their data on removable media.
I would really like to know how you believe that all that information can be
searched for ... with all the possible removable media, all the harddisks in
personal computers and so on. It would of course be possible if we did not
employ people nor had any students ;-)
Charles
PS. Is it Friday yet?
> Charles,
>
> You make the same point from a hardware perspective. The design of any
> 'system' could make it exceptionally difficult to find data, and then allow
> data controllers to claim disproportionate effort. Systems need to be
> designed to cope with the legal requirements, which include the subject
> access provisions.
>
> To try to deny subject access because of a 'system' or 'application' which
> makes it difficult to extract the data, appears to be admitting that the
> legal requirements were ignored in the design/implementation of that
> particular system for some reason, (i.e. risk/cost). The amount of effort
> necessary to extract data at a later stage is determined at that earlier
> design/implementation stage. Find out who the person was who managed the
> original computer 'system/application' implementation project (or their
> replacement), and land the SAR with them to extract the data, pointing out
> the time limitations and organisational liabilities. Request a written
> response. Surely the DPO is not responsible for every system within every
> organisation!
>
> Ian W
==============================================
Charles Christacopoulos, Data Protection & Management Information Officer,
Planning & Information, University of Dundee, Dundee, DD1 4HN, Scotland,
United Kingdom.
Tel: 44(0)1382-344891. Fax: 44(0)1382-201604.
http://www.somis.dundee.ac.uk/ http://somis2.ais.dundee.ac.uk/
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