Data Protection Act Essay Research Paper Data

Data Protection Act Essay, Research Paper

Data Protection Act

(DPA)

The Data Protection Act was passed in 1984 to stop the misuse of personal data held on computers. When something is placed on computers there are ways for other people to gain that information and use it in the wrong way. The DPA set some guidelines that they use to protect the individual from having their files read by other people.

The first way that the DPA would protect an individual is, the organization holding personal information on their employees would have to notify the DPA and they would ask the company two questions. The first question that would be asked is what type of information they are going to store, that is the first question. The second question would be, exactly what they are going to use the data for. That is the second question and then the DPA would decide if that was ok or not.

The second guideline that the DPA sets is as follows, the data held must have been obtained legally and may be held and used only for the stated purpose. This is very important because some companies might try and get illegal information on a certain person so then they can sue them for damage to their company.

The third guideline that would be followed is, the data must be accurate and be kept up to date. No data other than the items stated may be stored, and must be discarded when finished with. This is because if there is any information used that the person doesn t want stored then the company or organization can t. When the organization is done using the information they have to get rid of it so know one else can get it and use it.

The forth guideline that has to be followed is, the data must be protected from any unauthorized access, and it must not be passed on to any other organization or person. This is good because if an organization passes private information about you than they are violating your rights. You are taking a chance by giving valuable information to a company but you trust that they will keep it under protection and won t pass it on to other companies or people.

The fifth guideline that needs to be followed is, in most cases, everyone has the right to see the information that is being kept on them. If the data is found to be inaccurate then a person has the right to ask for it to be corrected, and if the incorrect data has caused personal damage, he or she has the right to compensation. This is a good point because it s not right if there is information about a person that is not true. If the information is wrong about the person that might mean that the person might not be able to get the job because of that information. The person has 100% authority to change data that is incorrect about them.

Networking is a smart and very easy way to get information from one computer to another with out having to go to that computer. There are many companies in the world that use networking. A computer that is not linked into a networking system is working on a Stand-Alone-System (SAS). These computers would most likely be linked to output devices, such as a printer. A computer that uses SAS usually has the software bought for only it’s self.

Software that you need to buy for using on a network system comes very expensive. Also when purchasing this type of software you need to have a license allowing set numbers of users, e.g. a five-ten or twenty user license. Licenses can be expensive for small organizations and it s often economical to buy single-user versions.

If there is information that needs to be transferred from a SAS computer to a computer that is on a network then the information has to be saved to a disk which then you have to take and load it on to the computer that you want the information to be on it. If there is a lot of information that is going to be transferred the disk will only be able to hold a certain amount of information, so transferring will be time consuming and unreliable.

All computers can be linked together to make networks but some networks differ depending on where the locations of the computer are being put. Where there is a computer linked directly into a network there is additional hardware called a network card. Networks also need a program to run successfully without any complications. That kind of software is called Network software.

Most networks have a file server. The purpose of this device is so it organizes the running of the network. For example, sharing files between the different computers and allowing access to software. A file server is sometimes used as a printer server. The printer serve could be connected to one main computer that organizes access to the printer in a network system. There could be a number of printers in a network and any computer could access all of them.

In a network there are usually a lot of computer and sometimes there are a lot in use. If there are a lot of jobs being sent to the printer to be printed, the printer server does a process called printer queue. This puts the documents in order of how they were sent to the printer.

There are two types of networking systems that are out for companies and organizations to buy and use. The first one is called Local Area Network (LAN). This type of network is used in small organization and mostly in school. They way that they are connected is by via cables.