My Parish council has broken the DPAct by having electoral roll on it's website. What should i do?

Question

This is the second breach of the DPA, the first was the clerk giving out a County Council computer access user name and password in a public meeting. When asked by e-mail to alter the security cod, this was not carried out by clerk or the chairman until they were told to by said County Council at a later date. Hence i do not hold out any hope of their acting on such an important issue.

The electoral roll has been on the website for over a year and because of the reluctance of Council clerk and chair to act on the first occasion do not know what to do.

Answer 1

You need to report it to your Local Authority and the Monitoring Officer.  The Electroal Role is not for public view but just to check the eligibility of candidates for the parish council and other elections.

You should also report it to the Information Comissioners Office, especially if they are registered as a data holder...

Comments

Thank you for this helpful information and i have followed your sage advise. However 6 of my fellow councillors say that they disagree with how I dealt with this situation. Honestly it's not surprising that people are reluctant to become councillors in our Parish.

---

I t has now been reported in the Minutes of this meeting that I have brought the council into disrepute, should i take any action about this, after all I did not breach the DPA?

---

I don't see how you have brought the council into disrepute as its not your actions in question and whistleblowing is protected.  I would speak to the Information Commissioner about this and also the Monitoring Officer for advice asap.  As for the other Councillors, its good to know that they have this opinion but it is irrelevant - if they are breaking the law, then they are breaking the law and their views are worthless...

---

Thank you so much for your advise, I really appreciate having an independent and knowledgeable view of the situation.