South Gloucestershire Council is committed to the objectives of the Data Protection Act and hereby declares its intention that all personal information held by the council will be treated in confidence and held and used only in accordance with the terms of the act and other applicable legislation. The council will, wherever possible, seek to do more than the minimum required by law, attempting to comply with the spirit of the legislation as well as the letter at all times. It will be open about the type and extent of personal data it holds. It will keep the minimum amount of personal information needed to perform its duties and it will hold that information securely, use it only for appropriate purposes and not disclose it without proper authority.
The council expects all of its employees to comply fully with this policy and the principles of the Data Protection Act and will provide training and advice necessary to enable employees to do this. Deliberate breaches of this policy will be considered as gross misconduct and will render the employee liable to disciplinary action up to and including dismissal. Individuals, as well as the council, can be prosecuted for breaches of the act.
The council's data protection officer is responsible for co-ordinating compliance with the act, including the notification of all applicable council systems with the office of the information commissioner, liaising with departments and departmental representatives to ensure such registrations are complete and kept up to date and for arranging training and giving advice as necessary to employees. It is, however, the responsibility of each elected member and every employee to be aware of their individual and collective responsibilities under the act and to make sure they comply with its provisions.
The council will provide any person requesting it in the proper manner a response stating whether or not the council holds personal information about that individual and, if so, the opportunity to see the information and to have it corrected or deleted if appropriate. Persons may only request details about themselves and no other person. The council is entitled to levy a charge for this service. However, the council has a positive attitude to public access to information and will wherever reasonable seek to cooperate with all requests without levying a charge but should the request be considered frivolous or otherwise a deliberate waste of council resources, the request may be refused.