Legal Issues
Data Protectoo Act 1998
The Data Protecton Act (DPA) and it sets out the rules for a processing personal informaton from
the public. It will give a certain amount of rights towards individuals and it states that companies
that use personal data and they must adhere to the eight principles.
Personal data shall be:
1. Fairly and lawfully processed
2. Processed for limited purposes
3. Adequate, relevant, and not excessive
4. Accurate
5. Not kept for longer than is necessary
6. Processed in line with an individual's rights
7. ecure
8. Not transferred to other countries without adequate protecton
It is enforced by the Informaton ommissioner’s Ofce and it has several optons when it will fnd an
organisaton to be breach of the act, there can be penalty notces and there can be fnes up to
£500,000 for a serious breach.
Freedom of Ioformatoo Act 2000
The Freedom of Informaton Act 2000 provides public access to informaton that is held by public
authorites. They are obliged to publish certain informaton about their actvites and the members
of the public are enttled to request informaton from them as well. The act covers any recorded
informaton that is held by a public authority inside England, Wales, Northern Ireland and also UK-
wide in cotland. However, cotland has their own Freedom of Informaton ( cotland) Act 2002. The
public authorites will include government departments, local authorites, the NH , state schools and
the public forces. The act doesn’t cover every organisaton that gets public money. The recorded
informaton includes printed documents, computer fles, emails, leters, recordings, and
photographs. However, the act doesn’t give people access to their own personal data such as
records of health or a credit reference fle. And if a member of the public wants to see informaton
then they must request it under the data protecton act 1998.
The principles behind the Freedom of Informaton Act 2000 are:
· Everybody has a right to access ofcial informaton.
· The holder of the informaton must ustfy for refusing to give informaton
· All requests must be treated equally for the informaton except under certain circumstances
relatng to strange requests and personal data.
· The informaton should only be disclosed under the Act if it would be disclosed it to anyone who
asked.
Computer Misuse Act 1990
Hacking has been around almost as long as the Internet; some people ust love to try and break into
a computer system.
Prior to 1990, there was no legislaton in place to tackle the problems caused by hacking. Although