Data Protection Legal Compliance and Good Practice for Employers

"This book, with its detailed but accessible approach and strong practical focus will provide a useful toolkit to guide HR professionals and is an invaluable addition to the shelves of any HR department." Communications Law, 2009.

"Lynda MacDonald has written a book that endeavours and sunsequently suceeds in outlining the significant and often overlooked risks involved for those organisations dealing with information." International Journal of Law and Management, 2010

This user-friendly handbook provides clear and practical advice on how to comply with the Data Protection Act in the workplace. It considers the wide-range of data protection issues that face every HR professional and data protection officer and offers guidance on implementing compliant processes in the following areas:

• Recruitment and selection
• Respect of employee records
• Equality and equal opportunities monitoring
• Who is the data controller
• The registration process
• Retention periods for HR and payroll records
• Processing of sensitive data and data security

Packed full of advice on the latest legal obligations

This new 2nd edition is packed full of information on the latest legal changes and developments, including:

• The new regime of penalties and enforcement provisions under the Data Protection Act
• The new statutory duty to provide informationabout employees under TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings legislation)
• Advice on how to comply with data protection principles when checking if foreign nationals have the right to work in the UK under the new Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act
• Updated information on health records taking into account the revisions to the Disability Discrimination Act
• A completely new chapter on the Freedom of Information Act
• More detailed information on the data protection principles
• Recent court decisions, eg on ownership of contact lists
• Information about the new National Staff Dismissal Register
• New sections on the dangers of new technology and the use of social networking sites by employers to vet potential recruits

This is the book that every HR professional, data protection officer and employment law specialist needs to own. Buy your copy today and make sure that your company is fully compliant with the Data Protection Act. 

This book is the second edition of the author's study of data protection issues in the workplace. Its purpose is to provide an updated user-friendly handbook which provides advice on compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

Twenty five years after the introduction of data protection legislation, this area is still seen as complex and confusing. Therefore the author aims to provide guidance for employers, human resources professionals and data protection officers, and, like the author's previous publications aimed at employers, it is marked by an approach which is focused, practical and holistic. There is an underlying theme within the work that matters involving data protection in the workplace cannot be considered in a vacuum, and the relationship of data protection with many other areas pertaining to the protection and disclosure of information in the workplace is explored in a lively and accessible way.

Guidance on data protection compliance is offered in the following areas: recruitment and selection, employee records, health records, equality and equal opportunities monitoring, employee monitoring and freedom of information. There arc many recent legal changes and developments in the areas of disclosure of information, notification requirements under TUPE 2006, and the effects of new technologies on the protection of employee data. Macdonald explores these effectively in the new edition emphasising that all have an impact on employers and lack of compliance has serious consequences.

A particularly notable feature of the work is the links to useful sources of guidance, for example the reader is encouraged to use various codes of practice. Checklists on compliance with the various areas are provided and a restrained approach to the use of authorities is employed which is appropriate and useful to the target readership...