The Committee for Home Affairs (CfHA) is preparing a relatively minor change to the Data Protection Law to remove some of the restrictions that may be preventing States committees from providing full and unredacted information to the Scrutiny Management Committee.
The Committee for Home Affairs (CfHA) is preparing a relatively minor change to the Data Protection Law to remove some of the restrictions that may be preventing States committees from providing full and unredacted information to the Scrutiny Management Committee.
The CfHA is aware of the difficulties committees can face in having to balance their efforts to be fully open with the need for due considerations about the disclosure of personal data of individuals who have not consented to have this data made public.
It is also recognised that the Scrutiny Management Committee is seeking additional powers to be able to require committees to share information with it, to assist it when conducting investigations. The CfHA considers that a change to the data protection legislation could be a valuable pre-cursor to the changes for which the Scrutiny Management Committee is pressing.
The CfHA will therefore be considering the introduction of the legislative change at its meeting next Monday. Ahead of that it is inviting the views of all States committees.
The new regulations, if approved, would allow for the personal data of individuals (known in law as 'data subjects') to be provided by committees to the Scrutiny Management Committee, on the basis the Scrutiny Management Committee undertakes not to publish the data without the data subject's consent.
Deputy Mary Lowe, President of the Committee for Home Affairs said 'It is important the Scrutiny Management Committee can conduct their reviews in a way that provides public confidence. It is also important those areas of government under review are able to show their commitment to being open and transparent. Therefore we believe there is a need to bring in these changes to the data protection law.
