Data Protection Act

[dewpoint]

I have just received notice from my company( loco north of England) to say that, in future, reasons for duty changes will not be given in order to comply with the Data Protection Act. Unfortunately, due to insufficient crews and poor rostering, duty changes are all too frequent.

Has anybody out there come across this as a reason for not telling you why your duty has changed?

[egbt]

Sounds like cra@pola to me.

Providing they don't intrude on other peoples privacy by giving personal info about some one else eg "x is drunk / insane / lost his medical so you have to do the trip", I don't see a problem.

Why not make your own data protection enquiry about data on yourself? The reason for the re rostering must be recorded somewhere - and it does not have to be on computer to be covered.

[Capt Pit Bull]

Seems to be a standard 'general purpose' excuse used by many organisations and individuals to explain away anything they don't want to / can't be bothered to do.

Recent example:

Pit Bull junior has a nappy laundry service. (The noisy little git is only 5 months old). Last week I got a call that "Due to the data protection act we will not be picking up this week".

Yeah, right.

CPB

[Jet2]

I rarely ask for the reason for changes anyway. If I did it's only likely to be sickness, training, etc etc so can't see that it makes any difference.

[Max Angle]

Our lot hide behind the DPA in much the same way, they won't tell you who you are flying with or the reason for changes etc. etc. It seems a good way to cover up incompetence and "favour" based roster changes. I guess it's a matter of how you interpret the act but no one in the union can see any reason for what they are doing.

[TwoDots]

Our mob is very similar ...

They won't tell you what you're doing or who you're doing it with any time before you report for duty, but once you arrive at the crewroom, you have their names, staff numbers, where they've come from, where they're going to ...etc...

Also, we often find that if crewing are after a favour, they'll tell you anything you want !

[dahamsta]

I have just received notice from my company( loco north of England) to say that, in future, reasons for duty changes will not be given in order to comply with the Data Protection Act. Unfortunately, due to insufficient crews and poor rostering, duty changes are all too frequent.If the British DPA is anything like the Irish one, and I'm pretty sure it is, that's absolute rubbish. You should challenge them on it, ask them exactly what in the DPA is causing this. When they reply, forward the information to your Information Commissioner (http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk/) and ask if it's accurate.

(In my experience - of the Canadian and Irish Commissioners - these guys are usually pretty honest, and tend to be hardasses that hate the legislation they're there to implement being used for bullsh*t like this.)

Good luck, and let us know how you got on.

adam

[Victor Meldrew]

Sounds more like avoidance of DPA than compliance. From my understanding, you have a right to see any personal data a company has electronically stored about you as an individual. If they are recording their reasons for change to your roster, you therefore have a right to see it. So, if they don't record it, you can't see it.

[effortless]

Information needing to be disseminated for the operation of the company is excluded as I remember. They are being awkward.

[Caslance]

dewpoint - Ask your management to tell you, in writing, which of the eight Data Protection Principles would be breached by giving you the reasons for roster changes, and in what way they would be breached.

Data protection forms a considerable part of my professional duties, so I'd be interested to see their reply to that one.....or their reasons for refusing to do so. :E

[dewpoint]

Thanks for the replies. I am amazed at the lengths management will go to to disguise their incompetence. I can't help thinking that if we carried out our functions to the same low standards , there would be more smouldering hulls than you could shake a stick at.

[Jordan D]

Dewpoint - from recall memory of studying the act (for IT GCSE in 2000), this is not a valid excuse.

The DPA is there to protect your information being held:
- correctly
- in safe/secure manner
- not given out to people to whom should not have access

Giving you reasons about your job should be given to you unless the data contains personal information about someone else (highly unlikely, from what you have said).

Jordan

[Caslance]

A concise and accurate summary, Jordan.

[paull]

Sorry to be flipant but the last time I had a problem with this Act was meeting someone at LHR but I did not know if they where flying BA (Term1) or SwissAir (T2).
I went to T1 , explained the problem that I did not know who they were flying with and BA told me they could not tell me if my friend was on the flight. "Why not" , DPA was the response.
So I asked who it covered, and apparently it covers anyone for whom they have the data in the database. I then reasoned as follows:

"If they are on your flight, then you cannot say anything, and I should stay at T1, if they are not on your flight, then the DPA does not apply so you can tell me to go to T2"

She smiled and said "I would go to T2 if I were you".

So, tell me how the DPA prevents me working out (with time), who or who is not on any given flight?

Well intentioned, but just like security, it only stops the folks you do not need to stop!

[Globaliser]

I agree about the "logician's dream" bit, but ultimately your reasoning can't get you information from the airline about who is on a flight. You were only able to work out that your friend was on an LX because you had other information that did not come from BA. So even if BA was correct to agree with your interpretation, the only information that they gave you was that your friend was not on their flight. That in itself tells you nothing about which flight he was on or who else was on either airline's flight. You had to know something else to work that out, and that is not BA's responsibility.

[Saintsman]

I remember the DPA being used as an excuse in the Ian Huntley murder case. North Humberside police were unable to pass details because it infringed the act.

However if you get a parking ticket, your personal information can be obtained from the DVLA. Even private companies can buy the information for a fee.

As always, its just used as an excuse by the incompetent.

[Mick Stability]

Every pilot in your company should write formally to the Data Manager requiring him/her to send all the data that they hold on you as they are required to do by the Act.

That should keep them in pencils for a week or two.

[RVR800]

This relates to personal information (even names) for living persons, there are exemptions e.g. lists of names in telephone directories are exempt but sensitive stuff isnt, especially

1/ racial ethnic orifin
2/ political opinion
3/ religious belief
4/ trade union membership
5/ physical mental health
6/ sexual life
7/ offences
8/ court data


If the persons identity is not presented then no breach has occurred.

[paull]

I disagree actually, but perhaps we will take it offline if need be.
My point was not that anyone told me that my friend was on swissair, because as far as BA are concerned my friend and the swissair comment could be a complete invention.

The point is that the only reasonable grounds that BA have for refusing to answer my question is if the DPA applies, in which case it confirms that the person is on the flight.
This means that insisting DPA applies means Yes , otherwise No.
Therefore, we have the crazy situation that the only way they can truely protect the information about their passengers is to refuse to confirm or deny anyone being on the plane, even if they are not on it and hence not subject to the DPA.

Conclusion: Refusal to confirm or deny should infact be a company policy that ensures that they comply with the DPA requirements, even though it actually goes beyond the legal requirement.
They may well argue the same w.r.t. this thread's question namely that is not the DPA that prevents them from telling you, but the company policy that has been put in place to ensure compliance with DPA, because the DPA itself is logically incomplete in terms of being able to prevent someone drawing useful inferences.
If the policy is heavy handed and you can propose an alternative approach that still meets the needs, that would seem to me the right approach.

Hopeful back on thead now, sorry for the indulgence.

Sorry folks my previous note was in reply to Globaliser, not the posts directly before.

[Jordan D]

Saintsman - utter tripe.

The DVLA is bound by legislation to pass on your details. And I think you'll find that information that is bought comes from the Editted Register of the People (Electoral Roll), which is used for elections and can be sold.

Maybe your facts should be checked first?

Jordan

[Phileas Fogg]

Speaking personally, I would have loved to have been able to quote the Data Protection Act, in my past life and many years ago, as a crewing bod.

Not for reasons of incompetence but because crewing bods get overwhelmed, and fed up with, the question 'who am I flying with?'.

Imagine the scenrio, you're calling out a widebody crew, perhaps 14 crew, off standby, to be at the airport ASAP, to replace a crew that has gone out of hours, there are hundreds of delayed passengers milling around the terminals, at this end and the other end, you've got commercial people breathing down your neck and you're going through the same routine and up to 14 sodding times, 'isn't there anybody else and who are the rest of my crew?'

THis problem is moreso from the back end rather than the front end of the aeroplane but what should be a 15 minute job, to call 14 crew, can stretch into an hour or more and the crew were required to report within that hour or more.

It would have been wonderful, and so time saving, to quote the DPA!