Data protection laws lay down strict conditions for the use of
personal data and there is no evidence that Claus has an adequate
compliance programme in place.
Children across Britain who write letters to Claus with a list
of gift requests are not told for how long that data is kept, or if
it will be used for other purposes such as marketing by third
parties.
The Data Protection Act stipulates that data should not be kept
for longer than necessary, which would mean 25th December, though
Claus may argue that he needs to keep the letters for six years to
use in any gift-related lawsuits.
"There is a stream of questions Santa has yet to answer," said
William Malcolm, a data protection specialist at Pinsent Masons,
the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM. "Is this information used for
anything other than present giving? Information passes out of the
EU, so does Santa check the letters for unambiguous, specific and
informed consent to this overseas transfer?"
OUT-LAW's attempts to put the questions to Claus were hindered
by the lack of an office chimney. Eventually the questions were put
up a domestic chimney but no response was received by time of
publication.
The Data Protection Act says that you must inform someone when
you are collecting data about them, and tell them what the purpose
of collection is.
"What about the naughty/nice database?" said Malcolm. "Are
children given notice that behavioural data is being collected
about them throughout the year? And does it qualify as covert
monitoring, which would breach Article 8 of the European Convention
on Human Rights?"
People can make a subject access request of databases holding
their personal information, but the database operator has 40 days
in which to respond. Children are now too late, therefore, to find
out before Christmas if they are on the naughty or nice section of
the system.
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