Data Protection Act

The Data Protection Act was introduced in 1998 by Parliament. The Data Protection Act is a law that got introduced to design and protect personal data stored on computers or in a planned filing system. The data protection act was introduced to stop personal information being spread or being misused by other people, it was also said by Parliament that by introducing this new law we can control the way information is handled and to give legal rights to people who have information stored about them. Lots of information gets stored around not only around England but in other European countries therefore they have also passed on a similar law to the data protection act.
The Data Protection Act only covers information about living individuals, it does not include businesses. Data subjects are the people who have the data held about them whereas data users are the people that hold the data; however, there are more data users than people think there are. For data users there are only certain types of data which you are allowed to store, these are: what they want to use it for, how long they will keep it for and people who they might pass it on to. Data subjects are only allowed to change their data if any is incorrect, if the national security is at stake you cannot demand to see your data.

There are also 8 data protection principles, these conclude of:
1) Fairly and lawfully processed (used).
2) Used for limited purposes.
3) Adequate and relevant. Only what is needed may be used.
4) Accurate.
5) Not kept for longer than is necessary.
6) Accessible to the individual and able to be corrected or removed where necessary.
7) Secure.
8) Not transferred to countries without adequate protection.

Not only is there the data protection act, similar acts have now come into force, some of which are: Copyright, designs and patents Act” which began in 1988, “Computer Misuse Act” which began in 1990, “Regulation of investigatory powers act” Which began in 2000 and the most recent act, “Freedom of information Act” which began in 2005.

Julian Assange

Julian Assange was born on July 3rd 1971, in Townsville, Australia. Assange is most famous for being the founder of WikiLeaks, a site which intended to collect and share confidential information on an international scale. WikiLeaks officially launched in 2007, it was banned from Sweden at the time because of the strong laws to protect a person’s secrecy. Later on that year the site released a U.S military manual that gave information about the Guantanamo detention centre. Carrying on from this, WikiLeaks also shared emails from Sarah Palin (vice president candidate at the time) from an anonymous source.

In early 2010 there was a sexual assault controversy for Julian Assange. He had been under investigation by the Swedish police since early August, in connection with two sexual assault cases. On the 6th of December after a European Arrest Warrant was issued by Swedish, Assange turned himself in to the London police.

Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden was born in North Carolina in 1983. In May 2013 Snowden began copying top-secret NSA documents while at work, building a record on practices that he found offensive and alarming. The documents contained vast and critical information on the NSA's local surveillance practices, including spying on millions of American people under the authority of programs such as PRISM. On June 6th the Guardian and the Washington Times released Snowden's leaked information on PRISM, an NSA program that allows real-time information to be collected, only information on American citizens. On June 14th the U.S government charged Snowden with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defence information, and wilful communication of classified intelligence with an unauthorized person. The last two charges fall under the Espionage Act. Edward Snowden still remains in hiding. In November 2013 Edward Snowden request for clemency was rejected. The USA has said that they want Snowden to return home and face criminal charges for leaking NSA documents.