Data Protection Act

[offroading.net]

I have some understanding on the law re this but mainly re email stuff as I work on it.

Not due to the personal info on forums like this do the owners of the board need to register with the agency who look after DPA registrations?

Also PM's, are they like email (owned by the author) or owned by the server/forum owner?

Not after guesses, just wondered if the are ant legal types on here who could advise.

Ta

Steve

[muddyweb]

Not due to the personal info on forums like this do the owners of the board need to register with the agency who look after DPA registrations?

It is my understanding of the DPA that because we don't hold any personal information outside a contact email address (other than what you as a member make available to the public in your profile anyway) that we do not need to register.

Also PM's, are they like email (owned by the author) or owned by the server/forum owner?

I'm not clear on the legal position on that, but on Mud-Club we treat PMs as the property of the author and make no claim on their content and provide no direct means of accessing them to site moderators or administrators.

[offroading.net]

My understanding aswell, just came up in conversation over a beer.
But fellow drinker argued that email address is just as good as a phone number (and holding a tel number would require DPA reg) so should I not be required to register.
Strange law anyway, I can give a number to a company if I want them to call me back but if they write it down it can have legal implications  :roll:

[Bulli]

I have a little understanding of the DPA , i was a bank manager for 8 years. Information on this site was freely given by the individual knowing it was a public forum. Therefore they have put the info into the public domain themselves hence not covered. If they were to give confidential details then tough for them , nothing on here is private.

[offroading.net]

What about private messages? Click on your message link on here and the page will display "private messages" in the top bar. It implies it is not public in the public domain  (and isnt). Is a very grey area in my eyes, would like some definitive legal advise on its status :?

[Budgie]

On another tack, would the same questions come up if the site owner and the server were in, say, France or Japan?
I only ask as the DPA is UK legislation and this is an international forum.  

[Guy90]

Why not go straight to the horse's mouth and e-mail the Information commissioner.

He'll tell you.

[Mudlark]

A lot would depend on where the server is i.e. where the data is stored rather than the nationality of the owner

Even uk servers use american data bases so........................










........big can of worms aint it  :lol: