Personal Data | Data Controller | Processing | Notification

Any Information that can identify a living individual.  Note that the Data Protection Act 1998 only applies to the living.

The data controller determines the purpose and the manner in which personal data is to be processed.  It may be an individual or an organisation, Torbay Council is a data controller.

The term processing covers anything done with data:

The Data Protection Act 1998 requires all data controllers who process personal data to register with the Information Commissioner.  The process of registering is called notification, it is a requirement of the act and is an offence to process personal data without notifying the Information Commissioner.  When the data controller has notified the details are entered on to a register.  This entry includes the data controllers details (name, address etc), broad details of the data they process in terms of type of data, why they are processing it, who they may give the information to and whether it will be transferred to any countries outside the European Economic Area.  It is a publicly available register which can be viewed at the Information Commissioners Website .