Data Protection - End of First Transitional Period

The first transitional period under which many manual records have been exempt from key provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 ends on 23rd October. Manual records containing personal data which are part of a relevant filing system and which were subject to processing already under way as at 24 October 1988 will no longer be exempt, unless the data was actually in existence as at 24 October 1998. Data in existence at that date will be subject to a more restricted set of exemptions until 2007, but the exemptions do not include employees' rights to request access to records nor do they include new types of processing of such data. It is therefore essential that before 24th October employers review their filing systems to ensure compliance with the new regime, including putting in place procedures for removing out of date information and for dealing with access requests in a cost-efficient manner.