15 Feb 2007
Industry experts have warned that changes to legislation in the trading of personal information announced last week will be ineffective and could result in innocent people being jailed.
Section 55 of the Data Protection Act is intended to crack down on rising levels of identity theft and introduces a two-year custodial sentence for obtaining personal information illegally.
The UK’s fraud prevention service, Cifas, says incidents of identity theft in 2006 increased 20 per cent compared with the previous year.
Philip King, director general of the Institute of Credit Management (ICM), says innocent credit managers could be prosecuted.
‘This is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut,’ he said. ‘If I instruct a reputable company to find someone, and someone four or five levels down the line is in breach of the Act, I am equally guilty and could end up in jail.’
Neil Munroe, chairman of the Identify Fraud Consumer Awareness Group, says implementation of the law will be critical.
‘There is a grey area about what is illegal. It will only be through cases being investigated that a policy will emerge on what is illegal,’ he said.
A spokeswoman for Cifas says catching the right people will depend on police.
‘The key to the success of the penalties regime will be catching, prosecuting and sentencing the procurers of the information, and this relies on the availability of sufficient police resources.’
What do you think? Email us at feedback@computing.co.uk
Further Reading:
Calls for crackdown on data theft
Previous laws were all too inadequate in protecting what they are meant to protect, CONSUMERS. Do I care if this law makes it a little harder for a debt collector to collect a debt... NO. So many of these laws and regulations wouldn't even need to be written if the companies that the ICM represents would have done the right things to protect consumer data in the first place. Don't let them fool you, this law is a great leap forward for consumer data protection!
Posted by: Evan Francen 23 Feb 2007
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