Human Rights Commission calls for transparency on personal data

The Equality and Human Rights Commission wants the government to bring in changes that will better protect people's personal information

The government has come under pressure from The Equality and Human Rights Commission to bring in changes that will better protect people's personal information.

The commission said that the way government and its agencies collect, use and store personal data is deeply flawed, and has even suggested that the government is behaving illegally in its collection of private data.

"It may be unaware that it is breaking the law as the complexity of the legal framework means its obligations are unclear," the commission said in a statement.

The commission also said that people do not know what information is held on them, by which government agency or private-sector body, or how it is being used and that this needs to change.

For example, as there is currently no law regulating the use of CCTV cameras it would be very difficult for someone to know which organisations hold footage of them.

The commission is making three recommendations to government:

• it must streamline the current legislation on information privacy making it easier for organisations to understand their responsibilities and easier for citizens to know and exercise their rights;

• it should ensure that public bodies and others have to justify why they need someone's personal data and for what purpose;

• all public bodies should carefully consider the impact on information privacy of any new policy or practice and ensure that all requests for personal data are justified and proportionate.

"The state is holding increasing amounts of information about our lives without us knowing, being able to check that it's accurate or being able to challenge this effectively," said Geraldine Van Bueren, a commissioner for the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

"This needs to change so that any need for personal information has to be clearly justified by the organisation that wants it."