With Keep nasty hands off your privates

YOUR private information is solid gold for companies and it needs protecting.

Data breaches are a real hot topic. Sensitive, private information about you can be misused or disclosed by firms or hackers.

Your data includes things like credit card details and passwords to email accounts. Even your birth date could be used by criminals to open accounts.

A reader called Wendy, from Leicester, asked for her details to be removed from a marketing list several times.

Yet she continued to be bombarded with emails and text messages from a big-name brand.

And Keith, from Lancaster, made a request for information from a car dealership he used.

He was concerned about what personal information they had about him because there had been a report in his paper saying their computer had been hacked.

The dealership said they had only his name and address, which Keith knew was wrong.

YOUR RIGHTS

Most people have heard of GDPR, which is an EU directive put in place to provide greater protections for your personal data.

The UK implemented these rules within the Data Protection Act 2018. This act gives you lots of rights, including.

The right to be informed when personal data is collected and used.

The right to access your personal data held by a company by making a request for information or freedom of information request.

The right to have your personal data erased.

The right to restrict processing of your personal data.

The right to object to the use of your personal data.

HOW TO COMPLAIN

If you feel a company is flouting the law and therefore breaching your data rights, put your complaint in writing to them.

Make sure you fully set out what you are complaining about and mention that the matters you are complaining about amount to a breach of the Data Protection Act. ESCALATING YOUR COMPLAINT

If your complaint is ignored or you are not satisfied with the response, you can report it to the regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office and/or go to court.

But before spending your money on going to court, I would recommend asking the company if they will agree to alternative dispute resolution.

There is a specialist scheme called Data Arbitration that deals with disputes in relation to breaches of data rights. Find out more at dataarbitration.co.uk.