Data Protection

The General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), effective from this May, may have caught readers’ attention. Much has been written about them. They are designed to ensure that whenever an organisation – such as the Freemen – holds information about individuals, that information is not used for any purpose without the individual’s knowledge and consent.

The Freemen hold only very limited data about individuals – name, postal (and perhaps email) address and, in some cases, phone number. This information is used only for the purposes for which it was provided, namely to maintain contact between the Freemen of Oxford. It is not shared with any other organisation. Details will be deleted on request. The Information Commissioners Office’s advice on consent to contact people contains a category called ‘legitimate interests’. A private-sector organisation like the Freemen can process personal data without specific consent from the individual, if it has a genuine and legitimate reason, unless this is outweighed by harm to the individual’s rights and interests. This category covers the Freemen’s activities.

The Freemen will normally only process that personal data so as to produce a mailing list. This very limited use would come within the scope of a legitimate interest.

So the new Regulations will not require any changes to the Freemen’s processes or activities. But it is right that readers should be reassured of this.