Data Protection

Data should be protected. To what extent is this applicable in the Public Service or Public Sector? Discuss

Introduction
Transparency, accountability and data protection are all essential elements for good governance. To achieve this objective, the Government felt the need to enact the Data Protection Act and the Freedom of Information Act intended to strengthen the fundamental rights of every individual and also to tackle issues that previously were unregulated. Faced with these new legislations the Public Sector had to go through major changes including educating both its employees and the general public about the rights and obligations arising from these Acts.
Data Protection Act
The Act provides citizens with the right to be informed about their personal information available to the Public Sector and its usage whilst precluding from being revealed to third parties without consent.   In addition only the required information could be requested and collected and may not be retained unnecessarily.   A lot of questions arise from such issues including whether storing data in any format would now be according to the provisions of this Act.
The scope of the Public Sector is to provide citizens with services in the most efficient and reliable manner.   However there are instances where Government Departments and entities attribute communication barriers between them on the Data Protection Act to the detriment of the citizens by not providing them with the required service or information.  
Being aware of this situation the Government is inclined to centralise Departments thus enabling them to collect and share information.   This would result in significant improvement in the efficiency and quality of service provided.   Nevertheless there is need to identify what impact   this Act would have regarding this matter since it obliges   data collectors to use it only for   specific purposes.

Freedom of Information

Today’s society considers information as an... [continues]

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