So much for data protection legislation eh?

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Years ago (over twenty years ago) I spent a lot of time getting my head round the then novel idea of data protection. This mattered since is was Planning Director of a large direct marketing agency and databases and data management were our stuff - data protection rules mattered. And the basic premise was that the holder of data could allow that data to be used for a purpose that the data provider (that's you and me folks) did not permit. That permission was contained within the data protection registration and placed certain requirments on the data holder and data user.

It seems that the government (I suspect wrongly) believes these rules don't apply to them:

The shopping habits of Britain's 25 million supermarket loyalty card holders could be grabbed by the Government in an attempt to halt the UK's dangerous obesity crisis, it was claimed today.

People who buy too much alcohol, fatty foods or sugary drinks would be targeted with 'tailored' health advice under plans being considered by the Coalition.

 

The data holder - the supermarket - could issue these warning letters but releasing the data to a third party (even the government) would surely breech data protection laws?

 

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