Breaking The Data Protection Act

There are many websites out there that are breaking the Data Protection Act daily. The Data Protection Act was put into force in March, 2000. There are eight basic principles that are stated in the Data Protection Act. By breaking the Data Protection Act, you would be breaking these eight principles.

After a study was done of the compliance of the data protection act by the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, it found that many websites were breaking the Data Protection Act. After researching over 3,000 URLs, and 900 organizations and conducting 200 interviews the study showed many companies were breaking the data protection act. It showed that 27 per cent of sites gave users information about how to question privacy policy and their use of data, 42 per cent of the sites studied have NO privacy statement even posted and 75 per cent of the sites surveyed provide any contact information.

Customers should be able to contact these organizations. The findings also showed that 5 per cent of the sites had poor intelligibility of privacy statements. Not allowing people to understand what they were saying. Data can not be processed fairly if users do not know what they are reading.

Another way that the breaking of the Data Protection Act is happening is through emails. Some companies are not following the rules and regulations by instantly archiving company emails as soon as they are sent. Companies are supposed to have these documents for as long as the document is alive. They must be able to produce the document if any law enforcement agency requires it. Otherwise the company and employees could be charged with a number of crimes such as contempt.

Another way companies are breaking the Data Protection Act is by allowing a third party or someone inside that company to view the user's information. Let's say that you purchase something online. The information that you type in on your account should only be viewed by the company you are purchasing from. There should be no other emails or such from another company saying they thought you might like another product because you have purchased similar items in the past from the original company.

There are many ways to break the Data Protection Act these days. Every company must maintain their integrity and security. We as consumers must make sure we purchase and deal with companies that are trustworthy. Or we might ourselves be helping criminals.