§ Mr. Sternasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what his plans are in relation to registration fees under the Data Protection Act 1984; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. HurdThe Data Protection Act envisages that the work of the registrar should be financed out of the product of the registration fee. That fee, covering a three-year period registration, was set at £22 in 1985 on the basis of an estimated 300,000 registrations. Actual registrations have been much less than that, and accordingly a substantial increase in the fee is now required. I have therefore made new regulations increasing the fee to £40 from 11 November this year. A further increase will be needed in November 1988 but its size will depend on the number of registrations in the intervening period.
The Data Protection Registrar has prepared a new simplified form for registration by small data users which he plans to introduce in mid-September. I hope that any small users who have, for whatever reason, failed to register so far will take advantage for these simplified procedures and register before the fee increase takes effect in November.