Shambolic data laws need urgent review

SHAMBOLIC, weak, impotent and chaotic is how one legal expert described the law this week as plans to reform EU Data Protection laws look set to drag on.

The Government’s Data Protection Working Party has acknowledged that work needs to be done to tackle the lack of enforcement measures against people who break the law.

Stewart Room, head of data protection at national law firm Rowe Cohen, spelled out three key reasons why the current system is chaotic:

Under-resourced enforcement effort by the authorities

A perceived low risk of getting caught by offending data controllers public ignorance of individual rights

Without an urgent improvement, businesses and individuals will continue to suffer uncertainty, ambiguity and mixed messages about the DPA. At the moment, the law is seen as impotent and a bit of a shambles.

The DPA allows discretion amongst EU member states and this inevitably results in disparities between countries. This is compounded by the fact that national data protection laws across the EU vary - particularly where they concern enforcement.

This causes problems for pan-European business, as well as for individual rights. Countries like Sweden have much tighter enforcement regimes than, say, the UK or Ireland.

But this is only part of the picture. Major funding problems mean that resources are stretched and compromises have to be made.

There is likely to be little change over the next twelve months. In the UK most of the Information Commissioner’s time is taken up with the Freedom of Information Act, which comes fully into force on 1st January 2005, with the inevitable knock-on effect for data protection compliance.