Data Sharing
What is data sharing?
Data sharing is a term to describe the sharing of data between government departments. Now, this is an evolving practice, and it's fairly controversial. One example of data sharing that has been approved by the Information Commissioner's Office is data sharing when you pay your road tax and get your road tax disk. In the old days, you would have to put together your insurance certificate, your MOT certificate, your vehicle registration document, go to the post office, present all of those, have them inspected, pay your money, and then you would get your tax disk. Now, all of this information is contained in different databases. The driver and vehicle licensing agency has a database which has your vehicle records. It also has your driving license. There is also a central database of MOT inspections. The motor insurers now have a database of their own. So, now you can pick up the phone, dial a particular number, give the details of your automobile. It will then query all the databases, and check that, in fact, you do have a valid MOT, you do have insurance, and your car is registered. And you then pay by credit card and it comes in the post. This is an example of data sharing which is generally seen as benign. However, there are other proposals and practices for data sharing between government departments for other purposes. Sometimes the purposes are in the form of detecting benefit fraud, for example. Checking income tax against applications for various benefits. There are other circumstances in which medical information may be shared with government departments for other purposes. These are more controversial.
Do I have to consent to data being shared?
In terms of the data protection act, your consent should be obtained for the sharing of your personal data. However, and it is a big however, consent may be deemed by your participating in a particular program. Also, the data may be shared for the purposes of law enforcement without necessarily obtaining your consent. Those are just two of the exceptions to the basic law requirement that consent has to be obtained.
How does data sharing affect my privacy?
Data sharing affects privacy because it involves the processing of personal data about you, by one or more data controllers who process it by handing it on to each other. One of the fundamental principles of data processing protection is that information that you provide for one purpose should not be used for another purpose, that is without your consent. Data sharing can affect you if information you have provided for one purpose is used for another. If the other data controller then uses that information in a way that damages you in some way, or, in some circumstances, if the information is shared, and you find out about it. One of the, dare I say philosophical questions, about privacy and surveillance is this: In a system of perfect surveillance where the government, for example, although not necessarily the government, knows everything about you, but in which you never realize that you are the subject of surveillance, what privacy right is involved? The short answer to that, the pragmatic answer, is that sooner or later the information will be used in a way so that the data subject, the person, will find out about it. That, even if this does not cause any immediate harm, it will have an inhibiting effect. That the inhibition caused by surveillance is one of the main reasons for privacy law. There still remains the question of what is wrong, in the privacy sense, if there is a system of surveillance which is completely unknown to the data subject.
What can I do if my personal data has been shared illegally?
If it's been shared illegally, then you can complain to the information commissioner, who may take steps to issue an enforcement notice to stop it. If it's been shared illegally and it has caused you damage, then you can go to court and ask for compensation.
