The Representation of the People Act 2000 (RPA 2000) introduced changes to how the Register of Electors is made available to the public. Since the Data Protection Act 1998 requires that data subjects must give their consent to their data being processed for direct marketing purposes, the RPA 2000 introduced two versions of the electoral register: the full version and an edited version. Members of the public may elect not to appear on the edited register which is available for public inspection and which may be sold to commercial data collection companies. However, following a significant court case, access to all registers published since 2002 are subject to the changed rules.
Before the RPA 2000 was implemented, a High Court (Queen's Bench Division) ruling on 16 November 2001 in the case of Brian Reid Beetson Robertson and Wakefield Metropolitan District Council found that the plaintiff’s data privacy had been violated by the Council selling the data about him held on the electoral register without his permission to commercial companies for direct marketing purposes. The court ruled that although the RPA 2000 was then not yet in force, the obligations of the EU Directive on Data Privacy were.
Both the RPA 2000 and the Robertson case have impacted on the making available of electoral registers in public libraries for inspection and consultation. Whether or not the full register continues to be available for inspection in public libraries depends on the policy of individual Electoral Registration Officers (EROs). While in theory there is nothing to prevent the full register from being made available for inspection through public libraries, the High Court also ruled that EROs must also consider and anticipate the purposes for which personal data are intended to be processed.
This means that EROs need to prevent situations arising whereby commercial data collection companies, not exempted by the RPA 2000, could access and copy substantial amounts of data from the full registers. In general this has led to public libraries not being able to make available full registers for the year 2002 onwards which are, for instance, less than 10 years old. Even then the ERO may require that access to the older (unedited) registers in libraries needs to be supervised. All the full registers continue to be available for inspection under supervision at Electoral Registration or Council Offices.
The RPA 2000 requires that copies of the edited registers must be available for sale to anyone including commercial companies. However, since the copyright and database right presumably belong to the ERO or the local authority, buying a copy of the register does not mean that the purchaser has also acquired the right to extract or re-use substantial amounts of the data unless he or she is also licensed to do so.
Staffordshire Libraries and Information Service have kindly allowed us to reproduce the text of their poster which provides further detail and clarifies the requirements. If you would like to use this or very similar text for your own publicity, please seek permission first by contacting:
Carol Barker
Team Leader: ICT, Information and Local Studies
Staffordshire Libraries and Information Service
Burton Library
Riverside
Burton-upon-Trent DE14 1AH
E: carol.barker@staffordshire.gov.uk
T: 01283 239560/556