Freedom Of Information

Freedom of Information and Data Protection
The Data Protection Act 1998 aims to secure individuals' rights to privacy by protecting information that is held about them. Any authority that handles personal data must comply with the data protection principles which control how such data is processed. These principles include, amongst others, that personal data should be fairly and lawfully processed.

Individuals have the right to ask for personal data held about them. This is known as a subject access request. Under Freedom of Information legislation a request by an individual for information about themselves will be exempt under freedom of information and will continue to be handled under data protection.

If someone makes a request for information about another living individual, this will be handled under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act, but certain data protection considerations will still apply, for example the authority will not have to provide the information if the disclosure would breach the data protection principles. If the authority decides that it may wish to disclose the information, then it should usually notify the individual and take account of their wishes, although, the authority does not have to be bound by the views of the individual.