Chris Timson

I can’t think of a single piece of legislation that I come into contact with which is more misunderstood than the data protection laws.

I’ve lost count of the number of times my phone has rung and the person on the other end has started asking me for private data “in order to comply with the data protection act”. Do these people really not get it, if you’re calling me, on my number, from a number that I don’t recognise, your identity is far more questionable than mine.

Today has been an interesting day from a data protection point of view

• I got an email from a customer asking for our bank details in order to pay an invoice. “I destroyed the last ones for Data Protection.” he states. Our bank details are on our invoice, a document he’s legally obliged to keep. The bank details are still relevant as he knew he had another stage payment to make on his project. Finally, the data doesn’t relate to a person (but a company) and therefore is not covered by data protection legislation.
• Broxtowe Borough Council informed me that they’ve looked into the data protection situation carefully and they may be able to give me access to some data that I requested after all. This relates to the Beeston Business Forum, an collaboration of local businesses and the local council of which I am currently the chair. Attendance at meetings is poor and my research into the reasons seems to show a combination of apathy and invites not reaching people. The council takes responsibility for sending out the invites, but every time I’ve requested to see the list of people it goes out to I’ve been told “You can’t see the list for data protection reasons”. This is crazy, the only personal aspect is the name of the contact at each business, and this data relates to the membership of an organisation which I chair. I’m pleased to hear that they’ve changed their minds and look forward to finally finding out who gets invited to meetings.
• I attended a BCS seminar “Data Protection and Compliance in Context” presented by Stewart Room. Stewart is a Barrister, a partner with Field Fisher Waterhouse, the chair of the National Association of Data Protection and Freedom of Information Officers (NADPO), a member of the BCS Information Privacy Expert Panel, a visiting lecturer on Computer and Communications Law, Queen Mary, the University of London and the author of the BCS book of the same title. It made a pleasant change to hear somebody knowledgeable talking about data protection rather than the usual misinformed garb I hear. I found it interesting to hear about how case law has changed with regard to data protection, how the government is trying to steer the information commissioner and how technology should be viewed as the solution rather than simply the problem.

This last point fits in with something I was saying to a potential customer last Tuesday. My recommendation was to use a web based database solution in a particular situation, something we often advocate at Touchlight Systems. She asked about the data protection consequences of such a solution, my response was that I felt it would help compliance much more than the current method of emailing back and forth of access databases.

OK so it’s time to renew my mobile phone contract, and I think I confused T-mobile somewhat. It took 4 people, the last of whom said “is it ok if I put you on hold for a moment, I need to get out my calculator as this is too complex for our computer system”.

The end result, I’ve now on a different tariff with a discount. My phone is on Flext 35 costing me £8.51 a month for 900 minutes or 1800 text messages and my 3G card now costs me £4.26 a month.

I was considering switching to “3″ for their mobile broadband, but I decided to take T-mobile up on their kind offer and stick where I am.

So…..

having thought about it several times before I’ve finally joined the blogging fraternity.

I’m not quite sure why I’ve changed my mind, nor do I know how successful this blog will be. I guess it will depend on how often I post and how many people decide to read it. As I don’t know why I’ve created it, I don’t know what I intend to write about. I suspect it will be fairly general about various things I do, fun and work, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

At the moment it’s a standard wordpress blog, if it’s still going in the new year I may start to customise it.

Oh the other thing… I’m not going to tell anyone it’s here (or at least not just yet). It’s upto people to find it. So if you know me and you’ve just discovered this please leave a comment to let me know. I have my guesses as to who will find it first, let’s see if I’m right.