OIA & Data protection

Hi - has anyone looked into whether the Higher Education Act 2004, allows the OIA to bypass the Data Protection Act (especially regarding personal information) due to their 'scheme application consent' which is compulsory to sign as otherwise they won't consider a complaint?

Thanks

Reply 1

nulli tertius

21

Original post by somewhat

Hi - has anyone looked into whether the Higher Education Act 2004, allows the OIA to bypass the Data Protection Act (especially regarding personal information) due to their 'scheme application consent' which is compulsory to sign as otherwise they won't consider a complaint?

Thanks

isn't it obvious?

If you complain, the OIA must be able to look at all evidence relating to your matter.

If you can play the data protection card with your university or OIA, what you are saying is that you want the OIA to look at your complaint, but you don't want the university to be able to tell its side of the story, the way it wants to tell it. Alternatively you want to tell the OIA things but you want to stop them being able to verify if it is true. You want them to be forced to accept your word.

If there are things that aren't helpful to you or you just don't want to hear, you want to be able to stop the university from disclosing them or the OIA from finding out about them elsewhere.

Reply 2

somewhat

OP

Original post by nulli tertius

isn't it obvious?

No it is not that obvious, particularly if the university publishes documents which are irrelevant to the essence of the investigation and make defamatory statements without evidence and all their communication, direct or written including their data protection policy with reference to the data protection act suggested the protection of sensitive personal data.

Reply 3

former student

Nulli Tertius,

I suspect it will be a judgment as to the relevance of the information to your case. I know of a case where a University revealed sensitive personal data regarding a student to a public body and the University was the subject of an investigation from the ICO. The ICO found against the University- but it was a different situation to yours. Perhaps you should contact the ICO for guidance?

Reply 4

nulli tertius

21

Original post by former student

Nulli Tertius,

I suspect it will be a judgment as to the relevance of the information to your case. I know of a case where a University revealed sensitive personal data regarding a student to a public body and the University was the subject of an investigation from the ICO. The ICO found against the University- but it was a different situation to yours. Perhaps you should contact the ICO for guidance?

I'm not the OP. I was merely commenting

OIA & Data protection

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