Right to privacy? The protection of personal data in UK public organisations

Aims to investigate and analyse the extent to which individual privacy is being protected by recent legislation in the UK – in particular, the Data Protection Act (DPA) 1998 and the Human Rights Act (HRA) 1998. Employees are monitored for compliance with the law, company policy and morality reasons. The HRA 1998 introduced a legal right to privacy. The DPA 1998 included manually processed data in addition to the computerised records covered by previous legislation. Such change poses considerable challenges to organisations. Information concerning employees can be excessive, inaccurate and kept for longer than necessary. It can also be insecure – for example, being held in unprotected directories. Investigates the legal challenge facing public organisations. Assesses the level of awareness and informed opinion of the recent information privacy legislation within such organisations. Refers to PhD fieldwork, and to the implications of the changes for libraries. Finally, draws conclusions about the advisability of good practice models.