ICO Publishes New Data Sharing Code of Practice

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has published its Data Sharing Code of Practice on 17 December available here.

The code, and the hub of new resources, provides practical advice to businesses and organisations on how to carry out responsible data sharing.

The ICO has launched a data sharing information hub where organisations can find support and resources, including:

    •  Data sharing myths busted
    •  Data sharing code: the basics for small organisations and businesses
    •  Data sharing FAQs for small organisations and businesses
    •  Case studies 
    •  Data sharing checklists 
    •  Data sharing request and decision forms template 
    •  Sharing personal data with a law enforcement authority toolkit
    •  Guidance on sharing personal data with law enforcement authorities
    •  Guidance on data sharing and reuse of data by competent authorities for non-law enforcement purposes

Background

    1. The Government included provisions in the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA2018) requiring the ICO to produce a code of practice that provides practical guidance on data sharing. A previous data sharing code was published in 2011 under the Data Protection Act 1998.
    2. The first draft of the new code went out to consultation in July 2019, preceded by a call for views in 2018. It was informed by initial views and evidence gathered from a wide range of private, public and third sector organisations, as well as individual members of the public acting in a private capacity. You can read the responses here.
    3. The ICO submitted the Data Sharing Code of Practice to the Secretary of State on 17 December 2020. The Secretary of State will now need to lay the code before Parliament for its approval as soon as is reasonably practicable.
    4. Once the code has been laid it will remain before Parliament for 40 sitting days. If there are no objections, it will come into force 21 days after that.

The information in this article is taken from the ICO’s press release available here.

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