Knowing Your Data Privacy Rights and How They Affect You

There is nothing new about our desire to protect our privacy. It’s natural to want to keep our personal information away from prying eyes.

It’s a concept that hasn’t been prioritised until, say, the last couple of hundred years. The ancient Greeks used their firm grasp of geometry in constructing buildings that maximised natural light while minimising its occupants’ exposure to public view. Their Roman equivalents had little regard for such matters, revelling in their crowded houses with thin walls that ensured every noise could be heard, for better or worse.

Things, unsurprisingly, are vastly different now. We live in a digital age, in which we’re far more vulnerable to hackers, cyber-criminals and others who want to steal people’s data for their underhand means.

Once upon a time, maintaining privacy was a fairly simple thing for any savvy, streetwise citizen to do. It was a case of protecting your personal property and ensuring you had a private space to escape to. It was only around the end of the 19^th Century that new inventions such as the original Kodak camera, an 1888 invention, and the telephone, from the 1870s, paved the way for today’s brilliant (but oft-troublesome) multi-functional handsets that hold so much of our confidential information.

These days, there is more data to protect and the risk associated with those vast swathes of data is also greater. The ongoing evolution into a digitised world has meant a goalpost change – and it’s more difficult, more complex and more important than ever to protect yourself.

As privacy requirements have changed, so too have data privacy laws.

Virtually all of us now carry the internet in our hand. Our phones can take photos, make video recordings and send them around the world in a matter of seconds.

So, while taking care of our data has been important through the years, it’s now a vital part of our self-preservation. Stolen data – which is usually accessed via a data breach – can be exploited and abused by fraudsters. This is, in part, why data privacy laws exist in the UK. Privacy is vital and the laws governing our data privacy are there for our protection.

Which does beg the question – what are the data privacy laws and how do they affect you?

Personal data is defined by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as any information that is “relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.”

That’s a lot to take in so, essentially, it’s data protection laws that establish the essential rules on the use of personal data and obligations for those handling data.

The UK’s GDPR provides a number of rights to identified or identifiable people (also known as ‘data subjects’). These include:

The right to be informed about the processing of their personal data.
The right of access to their personal data and the right to be supplied with a copy of it.
The right to rectification in the case of inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
The right to erasure of their personal data which is longer needs to be held.
The right to restriction of the processing of their personal data, in certain circumstances.
The right to data portability and the transferring of their personal data to another organisation.
The right to object to the processing of their personal data.
The rights that relate to automated processing of personal data that has a legal, or any other significant, effect.

GDPR is at the heart of your data privacy rights. The regulations mean that all companies are obligated to follow certain rules that cover the protection and fair use of personal data of UK residents.

GDPR also means that companies are accountable in the event of a data breach or misuse of held data, and means that they may be eligible for legal challenges.

The GDPR is a regulation adopted by the EU in 2016. It replaced the 1995 Data Protection Directive, which didn’t adequately address greater protection needs, given the advancements in technology. The GDPR had stronger enforcement capabilities and also standardised data protection across all EU member states, something the previous directive didn’t.

When the UK left the EU it implemented its own GDPR, a slightly-modified version of Europe’s existing GDPR. It covers personal data protection within the UK, how it’s monitored, how often it’s enforced and by who.

But back to you, and your privacy rights.

Data privacy law covers any information relating to you as an individual and the regulations covering how it is protected. This information includes names, addresses, dates of birth, medical and financial records and more.

The laws surrounding data privacy cover how that information – which can be used to identify people – is collected, stored and used. Its purpose is to prevent unauthorised use, and abuse by cyber-criminals, of that data. Stricter measures should be applied where more sensitive data, such as political leanings, religious beliefs, biometrics, ethnic or racial background, gender, sexual orientation, social media and browsing history, personal ID numbers and IP addresses, are concerned. This ‘special-category’ data requires more stringent levels of protection.

Data Protection rules mean that any official body, company, service provider or business is obliged to process data only when certain conditions apply. These conditions cover:

Transparency – any firm sharing data should do so openly and with the users’ knowledge. This is quite simple to adhere to; their website can simply offer a link to their privacy policy – you’ve undoubtedly seen ‘Accept All Cookies’ pop-ups in recent years. While we’re well aware that precious few of us – if anyone – would actually read the accompanying terms, this option is to comply with GDPR.
Legitimate Purpose – an organisation of any kind that collects user data for specific purposes must state what the purpose is and must retain the data they collect only for as long as is necessary.
Proportionality – in other words, minimising the amount of data held. This aspect of data protection looks at limiting the amount of information lost in the event of a data breach, and reducing the chances of gathering incorrect data.

So, providing businesses and other establishments adhere to the above they’ll be processing data lawfully and fairly. Using it for a specific purpose and ensuring the data they are collecting and holding is relevant, necessary, accurate and up-to-date, and that it isn’t retained any longer than is necessary means they are keeping to their responsibilities.

They also need to ensure they have robust protection policies, to repel those who want to access it without having a lawful requirement to do so, and action plans in the event of such a breach.

Thanks in no small part to GDPR, we have rights regarding our data and its usage. The protections are becoming more stringent, because they need to be with data becoming more important, valuable and widespread.

You have the right for your confidential data to be kept that way. The laws surrounding data privacy may evolve and alter in time but one constant is that you have the right to know what information companies hold on you, what they are using it for and why. Personal data must be processed in a lawful manner and the companies holding it – from small enterprises to global tech giants – should protect your privacy and act with transparency.

We are currently taking on multiple data breach and data misuse claims against organisations that have failed to safeguard its stored data, or have misused data. If you believe that you have been a victim of a data breach or data misuse, we will act on your behalf on a no-win no-fee basis.

All you need to do is click the below button and fill in a quick-and-easy form to get the ball rolling. From there our legal experts will assess your case to see if you have a valid claim and will contact you to talk you through the process.