The Data Protection Act 1998 aims to promote high standards in the handling of personal information and to protect the individual's right to privacy.

The Data Protection Act 1998 applies to anyone holding information about living individuals in electronic format and, in some cases, on paper. Voicescape has a DPA policy in place (a full version of which is available upon request) and their staff is advised that they must follow the eight data protection principles of good information handling.

Personal information must be:

  • Fairly and lawfully processed
  • Processed for specified purposes
  • Adequate, relevant and not excessive
  • Accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date
  • Kept for no longer than necessary
  • Processed in line with the rights of the individual
  • Kept secure
  • Not transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area unless there is adequate protection for the information.

Voicescape DPA Policy - Broadcast Specific

At Voicescape we hold information about individuals who are customers, employees, suppliers and clients. We also hold data on behalf of our customers and all of our customers' data is classed as sensitive regardless of its nature. We hold a large amount of customer data already on our servers and it is our responsibility to keep it secure. The Voicescape DPA Policy is our code of practice and should be referenced whenever data protection issues arise.

Our customers should also be aware that they have certain obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998 that have implications for them when a product such as Broadcast is used to store data about real, identifiable persons. For real data, they would be processing "personal data", and would have to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998.

If they use our databases to hold identifiable personal data on the cause of sickness, or to record an employee’s disability, they are processing “sensitive personal data” which has additional rules in the Act.

For the Information Commissioner’s guidelines to the Act please visit http://www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk