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Background

NB this section is of historical interest, I very much doubt that questions will now be asked about the differences between the two acts.

People have always been concerned about organisations storing personal data about them. There is a basic feeling that it is not quite right for strangers to know the details of your personal life. We feel that there is a basic human right - the right to privacy. Poeple worry as to whether the data stored is accurate and worries as to the uses that the data might be put. The use of computers to store and process personal data increases these concerns.

These concerns led to demands for a data protection act. The real motivation for the act however was an EC directive that personal data could only be exchanged between states that had a data protection act. It was therefore necessary for the UK government to pass a data protection act to allow data exchange with our European partners. This resulted in the Data Protection Act 1984. The purpose of the Data Protection Act 1984 was to regulate the automatic processing of personal data. It did not apply to data that was held and processed manually and thus paper-based data was not covered.

Many people felt that the 1984 Act did not go far enough to protect individuals' rights. There were many exemptions that made the act unsatisfactory. Payroll and pensions data for example were completely exempt from the provisions of the act. Two of the greatest weaknesses of the act were the fact that it did not apply to manually processed data and that the individual had no control over the use and sale of personal data relating to them. This lead to a new act, passed in 1998 but not put into effect until March 2000, which was also the result of an EC directive.

The table below shows some of the ways in which the 1998 goes beyond the previous one.

1984 Act

1998 Act

 

Specifically includes data relating to intentions regarding the data subject

Did not apply to manual data

Applies to written records if information about a data subject can be readily accessed

Right of Subject Access
Right to compensation
Right to have errors in data corrected

Right of Subject Access
Right to prevent processing likely to cause damage or distress
Right to prevent processing for direct marketing
Right to prevent processing for automated decision taking.
Right to Compensation
Right to have errors in data corrected
Right to request assessment.

Exemptions included for
            Back up data
            Payroll and accounts processing
            Members clubs
            Mailing lists

Exemptions not included for
            Back up data
            Payroll and accounts processing
            Members clubs
            Mailing lists
   

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