Future legislation affecting financial services
| Date | 01 January 2000 |
| Published date | 01 January 2000 |
| Pages | 84-93 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb025034 |
| Author | Lucy Inger |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & finance |
Future legislation affecting financial services
Lucy Inger
Received: 22nd November, 1999
Masons Solicitors, Springfield House, 76 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 2AY; tel: 0113 233 8905; fax:
0113 245 4285; e-mail: lucy.inger@masons.com
Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance Volume 8 Number 1
Lucy Inger is a solicitor at Masons,
work-
ing in the areas of information and tech-
nology, telecommunications and e-
commerce. She is also a data protection
specialist. One of her most recent tasks
has been completing the annotations to
to appear in Sweet & Maxwell's Encyclo-
pedia of Data Protection. Lucy is one of
the editors and contributors to this publi-
cation. She also contributes to Sweet &
Maxwell's Encyclopedia of Information and
Technology and writes regularly for local
and national press on the subject of data
protection, privacy and e-commerce. As a
result of current interest in privacy and
data protection, Lucy has completed an
interactive and practical CD-ROM guide to
enable small to medium-sized enterprises
national conferences on the impact of data
protection on direct marketing, privacy
and e-commerce.
ABSTRACT
The financial services industries is facing a
number of important legal developments. The
most publicised of
these
is the coming
into
force
on 1st March, 2000 of
the
new Data
impact on the way in which
businesses process
personal data. It will, for the first time ever,
apply to personal data stored in certain manual
files and it will also regulate
trans-border
data
flows and restrict the processing of a special
category of sensitive personal data. Information
is the lifeblood of any business. There is no
doubt that this Act is going to regulate the flow
of that information and all its uses. Other
developments in the pipeline include the pro-
posed European Union Directive on the dis-
tance selling of financial services to consumers
and the various legislative provisions which are
being put in place to deal with the huge surge
in on-line transactions.
THE DATA PROTECTION ACT 1998
There are some important changes in the
legal pipeline which will affect the way in
which organisations, particularly those in
the financial services sector, do business.
The first and most important change is
the coming into force on 1st March, 2000
of the new Data Protection Act 1998 (the
new Act). Every business processes some
kind of personal data. In the financial ser-
vices sector these will include data about
customers, business contacts and employ-
ees.
Even if
a
business does not deal directly
with individuals, it will still be caught if it
processes personal data about sole traders,
partnerships or business contacts within a
company.
The new Act contains a number of valu-
able,
although complicated, transitional
provisions. These will ensure that most
organisations, who were processing perso-
nal data before 24th October, 1998 can
benefit from a short breathing space during
Journal of Financial Regulation
and Compliance, Vol. 8, No. 1,
2000,
pp. 84-93
Henry Stewart Publications,
1358-1988
Page 84
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