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Legal Guidance – Data Protection Act 1998
This Guidance Notice seeks to give
information to healers in
Please note that I am not a qualified
legal practitioner and healers affected by this legislation should seek
professional legal advice as appropriate.
Please read the introductory guidance
on the legislative process in the
The Data Protection Act 1998 is reproduced below in
full under the terms of Crown
Copyright Policy Guidance issued by HMSO (Her Majesty’s Stationery
Office). Copyright is owned by the Crown
and information on reproduction rights may be found on the HMSO website at http://www.opsi.gov.uk/advice/crown-copyright/copyright-guidance/reproduction-of-legislation.htm
.
The Data Protection Act was amended by certain
provisions within the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 which became
law in May 2008. The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act was essentially a
piece of legislation to tidy up and to update previous legislation in a number
of areas and only a small part of the Act is relevant to Data Protection. The
parts that are relevant to Data Protection are reproduced on a separate page on
this website and should be read in conjunction with the reproduction on this
page. Please click here
to read the Data Protection extracts from the Criminal Justice and Immigration
Act 2008.
Background
The
Data Protection Act 1998 Chapter 29 came into effect on 1st March
2000 and replaced the earlier Data Protection Act 1984.
Organisations
and people working for themselves or in partnerships hold information about
individual people as part of their day to day activity. The overall objective
of the Data Protection legislation is to provide a legal framework within which
information about people may be held securely when there is a reasonable need
to do so but also to prevent the unreasonable dissemination of such
information. In the electronic age where it is easy to hold a lot of
information about people and to publish or to transmit it, there is a clear
need for information about people to be managed in a responsible way.
The
Data Protection legislation covers the holding and use of records held in any
format (electronic or hard copy) which contain reference to individual people
by which their identity can be recognised. The legislation covers all records whether
factual, expressions of opinion about people or notes of intention to deal with
people in a particular way.
In the
context of people working as healers, situations where there is reasonable need
to hold records about clients might include:
- Records of
conditions being treated and effect of successive treatments.
- Records of
medical treatment and other alternative therapy treatments being received
by clients.
- Records of
visits and payments for accounting and tax calculation purposes.
- The writing
up of case studies when working towards certification in various energies.
There
might also be reasonable need for healers who teach others to hold training
records such as:
- Who has been
taught what and when.
- Details of
practical work undertaken by students.
- Records of
case study work undertaken by students.
- Details of
charges made for accounts and tax calculation purposes.
Some
of these situations can fall within the scope of the Data Protection Act
requirement to register as a holder and processor of information – a Data
Controller. I would recommend, therefore, that healers take the time to read
through the reproduction of the legislation below so that they can familiarise
themselves with it and to ensure that they work in compliance with it where
appropriate. It is an offence not to be registered as an information holder and
processor if you should be registered. The current annual registration fee is
£35. The people about whom healers hold information should have agreed to the
information being held
I would
recommend also that healers refer back to the legislation again when a regulatory
environment is introduced for energy healers.
This is likely to result in the need for a lot of detailed record
keeping and all of this will have to be undertaken within the rules set out in
the legislation.
The
simple overview of the legislation is as follows.
Part
1 deals with terminology.
Schedule
1 of Part 1 gives the eight basic principles or rules around which the
legislation has been constructed. These require that information about people is:
·
fairly and
lawfully processed in the context of common law and other legislation;
·
processed
for limited purposes;
·
adequate,
relevant and not excessive;
·
accurate;
·
not kept
longer than necessary;
·
processed in
accordance with the framework in law;
·
kept secure;
·
not transferred abroad
without adequate protection.
Schedules
2, 3 and 4 of Part 1 outline the situations in which it is lawful to process
and to hold information relating to individuals.
Part
2 deals with the rights of
individual about whom information is held to require the holder of the
information to disclose to the individual what information is being held about
him / her. It also deals with remedies in law if incorrect information is held
about an individual.
Part
3 deals with actions that
holders of information need to undertake to register with what was called the Office of
the Data Protection Commissioner. The Freedom of Information Act 2000 led to
the renaming of the Data Protection Commissioner as the Information
Commissioner working from the Information Commissioner’s Office. The
Information Commissioner is effectively the Regulator for Data Protection.
Registration means that the Office knows who is holding and processing
information and knows who is required to comply with the relevant legislation.
Part
4 deals with certain
situations which are exempt from the general provisions of the legislation.
Part
5 deals with offences under
the legislation and sets out the basis in law under which the Information
Commissioner can enforce compliance with the legislation.
Part
6 deals with the relationship
between the Information Commissioner and Parliament and with
various other miscellaneous matters.
The
website of the Information Commissioner’s office is at http://www.ico.gov.uk/ . The website gives
guidance on data protection related issues. There is an online helpline service
if you cannot find answers to your queries on the website at
http://www.ico.gov.uk/Global/online_enquiries.aspx.
Reproduction of the
legislation
The legislation is reproduced below.
Anything which is underlined in the Arrangement of Sections has a hyperlink to
its place within the legislation.