Louise Haigh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what guidance his Department issues to credit reference firms on handling data on people who are on the closed electoral register.

John Penrose

The Information Commissioner’s Office provides guidance to both private and public sector organisations to help them understand their obligations under the Data Protection Act. Organisations wishing to process personal data in the UK, including credit reference agencies, must register with the ICO and comply with the DPA’s eight data protection principles. Among other things, these principles require personal data to be processed fairly and lawfully; to be accurate and up-to-date; not to be kept for longer than is necessary; and to be processed in accordance with the rights of the data subjects under the DPA.

The ICO’s website provides public information on credit reference agencies’ use of the electoral register at (https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/credit/).

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