Author: actnowtraining

Act Now Training is Europe's leading provider of information governance training, serving government agencies, multinational corporations, financial institutions, and corporate law firms. Our associates have decades of information governance experience. We pride ourselves on delivering high quality training that is practical and makes the complex simple. Our extensive programme ranges from short webinars and one day workshops through to higher level practitioner certificate courses delivered online or in the classroom.

FPN & CCTV

Not sure why but when a normally rational DP officer is asked to produce a Fair Processing Notice for a CCTV camera they seem to lose track of reality and forget the basics. Name of Data Controller; purpose of processing, contact details.

Here’s a simple example.

Forgot almost everything and also made the mistake of telling people that they were using hidden cameras. Hidden engages RIPA. Easy mistake to make.

Another fine example of this on the right is a well known police force.

Clearly they thought about what to put on their sign but managed to get it spectacularly wrong.

And while the Act Now staff are abroad they also keep their eyes open for interesting signs. Souriez means Smile. We’ve seen versions of this in the UK.

And a colleague sent the following to me knowing I had a library of CCTV signs collected on my travels.

 

 

 

 

How we laughed… But then we realised… what do our CCTV signs look like? Is anyone snapping ours and showing them off as not actually very good…   Send us your signs.

CCTV and the Law Workshop – Watching You Watching Them More details – http://www.actnow.org.uk/courses/714

Act Now Book Draw Week 4

Information Rights in PracticeThe winner of this week’s Act Now Book Draw was

Donald Maclean from Perth College.

Next week’s book is Information rights in practice by Alan Stead.

The next draw will take place on Wednesday 21st March at 9am. Click here to enter the draw.

If you enter the draw and win, you give us permission to let others know that you have won (by e mail, on our website and by Twitter). If you do not want us to do this, please do not enter the draw. Any information we receive through this free draw will not be used for any other purpose.

R.I.P. Tiddles – A Cat’s Tale

Maybe it was when he realised he couldn’t access his medical data (through his human owner); maybe it was the lack of a satisfactory diagnosis; maybe it was feline immunodeficiency virus that caused the lesions on all limbs and the infection in his nose and ears but Tiddles disappeared Tuesday morning at 8 am after a full pouch of Felix salmon in jelly. His owners spent 88 hours ch chewing at the front door but it looked like he’d run away to die (research on google revealed that this was a likely outcome). Friday evening and he turned up out of the blue looking very weak and bedraggled. Following day he was taken to the second opinion who made an appointment for an emergency FIV and leukaemia test at a local animal hospital. Despite a negative test the vet decided that the best advice was to put him out of his misery. He’d lost 35% of his body weight; had difficulty walking, slept 23 hours a day and was wasting away. He was 5 years old. At 1400 on Saturday 10th March Tiddles moved outside the scope of the Data Protection Act although he never had any Principle 6 rights as he failed most of the Durant tests. This post not tagged DP or privacy or SAR or anything. Just a shaggy cat story.

Act Now Book Draw Week 3

Data Protection: Legal Compliance and Good Practice for EmployersThe winner of this week’s Act Now Book Draw was

Melanie Cartwright from South Hams District Council.

Next week’s book is Data Protection: Legal Compliance and Good Practice for Employers by Lynda Macdonald.

The next draw will take place on Wednesday 14th March at 9am. Click here to enter the draw.

If you enter the draw and win, you give us permission to let others know that you have won (by e mail, on our website and by Twitter). If you do not want us to do this, please do not enter the draw. Any information we receive through this free draw will not be used for any other purpose.

Act Now Book Draw Week 2

Govenment and Information: The Law Relating to Access, Disclosure and their Regulation by Professor Patrick Birkinshaw and Dr Mike VarneyThe winner of this week’s Act Now Book Draw was Teresa Evans from Birmingham City Council.

Next week’s book is Government and Information: The Law Relating to Access, Disclosure and their Regulation by Professor Patrick Birkinshaw and Dr Mike Varney.

Click here to read the book review by Ibrahim Hasan

The next draw will take place on Wednesday 7th March at 9am. Click here to enter the draw.

If you enter the draw and win, you give us permission to let others know that you have won (by e mail, on our website and by Twitter). If you do not want us to do this, please do not enter the draw. Any information we receive through this free draw will not be used for any other purpose.

Marion. The FOI exemption for schools.


We delivered some training today to a school in the north – we have a briefing for schools covering DP & FOI in a half day – and as usual prior to the training we did some research which included making a FOI request to the school. Right at the very end of the afternoon after the case studies and the questions the trainer asked if the school had received any FOI requests in the last 7 years. The head teacher sitting bravely on the front row shook his head. Others chimed in and consensus was milliseconds away when the trainer showed on the screen the screen grab of the request that had been made by email 19 days ago using the school’s contact us page.

Silence and almost simultaneously darkness fell.

‘Looks like a request to me” intoned the trainer, “it’s asked for a biography of the Headteacher and details of his reimbursement package for the last financial year”.

Then Marion the school secretary who’d been sitting at the back spoke. “I might have seen that one” she chirped, ” but I delete anything that looks dodgy”.

“What’s dodgy?” ventured the trainer,

“The name, the email address – I don’t allow hotmail ever”, replied the determined administrator.

The trainer tested out a few requests that he knew had been sent to schools in general – the knife incident request, “deleted that” , The CRB question, “deleted that” and the realisation that Marion had set up a foiwall that had yet to be penetrated settled on the room.

Add in the lack of publication scheme, lack of privacy policy and lack of training and it’s clear there’s a lot of work to do in schools. We have a range of services from an online session to a full day in school with audit, policy work & training. See our website.

Marion is of course a pseudonym. Her real name was Margery.

Audio Newsletter

Are you tired of reading long newsletters? 

Listen to the latest Information law stories/cases in bitesize chunks in our audio section.

New items include commentary on latest Commissioner and Tribunal decisions.

http://www.actnow.org.uk/content/25

Just click or scan the QR Code to listen.

Act Now Book Draw Week 1

Book DrawThe winner of the first Act Now Book Draw was Jennifer Green from Babergh Council.

This week’s book is The Freedom of Information Act 2000 by Michael Supperstone QC and Timothy Pitt-Payne.

The next draw will take place on Wednesday 29th Feb at 9 am. Click here to enter the draw.

If you enter the draw and win, you give us permission to let others know that you have won (by e mail, on our website and by Twitter). If you do not want us to do this, please do not enter the draw. Any information we receive through this free draw will not be used for any other purpose.

The Save FOI Campaign

The Freedom of Information Act is under attack. What brought us the MPs’ expenses scandal and which has exposed public waste and bad decisions is now the focus of ill formed comment and criticism. Lord O’Donnell, Tony Blair and even David Cameron have all expressed regret and misgivings about FOI. This is all part of a move towards weakening FOI.

The current Post-Legislative Scrutiny will be used to undermine the principles of openness and transparency. Moving from qualified exemptions to absolute ones, introducing charges and reducing the costs limit are all being suggested. This will significantly weaken the Act and the publics’ right to know.

This is a dangerous moment for FOI. With the focus on austerity, and the media being busy in dealing with its own problems, it is time for all those who value democracy to voice their concerns and support the campaign to save FOI.

Act Now and let’s save FOI from Government meddling:

Read the Save FOI Blog:  http://savefoi2012.wordpress.com/

Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/SaveFOI

Subscribe to the Twitter Paper: http://paper.li/ActNowTraining/1329331226

Sign the e-petition: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/29757

We may pass your data to carefully selected third parties…

It started when I got a new Tesco credit card. The following day I went to an outlet retail park and bought a few T shirts from Cotton Traders, Craghoppers and similar stores. The next wednesday I received through the post a Craghoppers catalogue. I was intrigued. I’d used Craghoppers decades ago when I was young and fit but the only connection between me and them was my Tesco credit card. No-one in the retail park had asked for my address – they’d just taken payment. Had Tesco supplied my data to Craghoppers? I thought I’d find out. I made a subject access request to Craghoppers.

To  ‘customerservices@craghoppers.com’

Date Mon 18/04/2011 15:45

Dear Sir

My  address is xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. If you require anything further to validate this request please tell me.

Please supply me with any personal data you hold on me particularly about the mailing I have just received from you with the media code CE14 and 51574/38122A  516 in the right hand corner of the label.

Please tell me from where you obtained my address. This includes “any information available to the Data Controller as to the source of those data”. (Section 7 (1) (c) (ii) of Data Protection Act 1998).

Regards

Dear Mr xxxxxxxxx

Thank you for your recent email. The only information on our system is your name, address and details of an order you recently placed with us. It appears that until you placed this order none of your details were on our systems, this would indicate that the mailing data for the catalogue you received was sourced from a third party whom you have given permission to share your data. Your account now on our system does not have any mailing options activated.

If we can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards

Craghoppers Customer Service Team

Hmmm. This says (I think) that until I bought a shirt (I’m a sucker for shirts) on Monday 18th April at 1552 they didn’t have any personal data on me at all. How then did they send me a catalogue?

I didn’t ask for my mailing options to be de-activated.

I never give my permission for a 3rd party to share my data (I am a DP freak)

It seems someone out there who is not Craghoppers sent me a Craghoppers catalogue. Hmmm… there’s work to do. Little did I realise it would mean many subject access requests and a story of subterfuge and data sharing…

Read more at  http://www.actnow.org.uk/media/articles/sar2012.pdf