27.01.12
More awareness needed for public access to data
Too many consumers are denied access to their information, Information Commissioner Christopher Graham announced ahead of the 6th annual European Data Protection Day.
The ICO stated that complaints about mishandled subject access requests in the last financial year accounted for over a third of the ICO’s total data protection specific coursework.
To combat this, the ICO is launching an awareness-raising campaign, Access Aware, to help organisations to recognise subject access requests and how to respond to these. Requests must be answered within 40 calendar days.
Banking and finance companies were identified as the worst performing sectors in relation to giving consumers access to their information. Health bodies and policing and crime organisations were also highlighted as poorly performing.
In 2010/11, almost half (45%) of data protection specific complaints about health bodies concerned mishandled requests. In the same year, 34% of data protection specific complaints in the policing and criminal justice sector were about subject access.
Graham said: “Organisations that handle personal information need to remember that customer records are not simply their property – the individuals who do business with them also have rights. We are seeing far too many complaints that could easily have been avoided if they’d been given serious and timely consideration.
“The result of mishandling requests is not simply a blip on customer service satisfaction levels, it can cause individuals a great deal of upset. The people who are making these requests are not doing it for fun; the vast majority are seeking resolutions to real problems – such as being refused credit or making important decisions about their health.
“I hope businesses and bodies that handle personal data use European Data Protection Day as a prompt to think about ways to improve their subject access request handling. Our Access Aware materials have been designed to help them do just that.”
For more information, visit: www.ico.gov.uk
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