Data Protection & Freedom of Information Office

Processing of Personal Data and Special Category Data

If you have access to personal data about a living individual, then you are processing that personal data and the processing is subject to the terms of Data Protection legislation.

Under Data Protection legislation, the definition of processing is wide and covers pretty much anything that is done to personal data.  This includes, but is not limited to, the following operations:

• collection
• recording
• organising
• structuring
• storage
• adaptation or alteration
• retrieval
• consultation
• use 
• disclosure by transmission
• dissemination or otherwise making available
• alignment or combination
• restriction
• erasure or destruction