COMMONS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 10 July 1998)

§ Lord Williams of Mostyn

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 60. I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 61 to 66 and 148.

These amendments make a number of technical changes to ensure that Clause 39 works as it should. Clause 39(1) makes provision for the issue by the data protection commissioner of enforcement notices requiring data controllers to change their practice if the commissioner is satisfied that they are contravening any of the data protection principles. Where appropriate, any enforcement notice is capable of requiring the rectification, blocking, erasure or destruction of data.

Clauses 39(3) and (4) make special arrangements for enforcement notices issued in respect of contraventions of the fourth data protection principle. Clause 39(3) provides for such a notice to require the controller to rectify, block, erase or destroy any inaccurate data and any other data he holds containing expressions of opinion which are based on inaccurate data, or to follow a special procedure in relation to inaccurate data which were received by the data controller and which he has recorded accurately.

Clause 39(4) deals with the situation where inaccurate personal data, which have been rectified and so on, have previously been disclosed to third parties. It says that an enforcement notice may, if reasonably practicable, require the data controller to tell the third parties of the rectification and so on.

The arrangements for the rectification and so on of personal data, and for notifying third party recipients of the rectification, need to apply to any breach of the data protection principles and not simply to breaches of the fourth principle. The purpose of these amendments is to ensure that they do.