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is this a breach of the dpa?


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I hope I am in the right forum! I have had my personal information disclosed to a client of social services, by a social worker, I am half way through a second level complaint with the local authority, and it has transpired that this social worker obtained the information from my former employer, the Council, albeit another department. They held information on me for the purposes of recovering a debt, gave this info to social services, who rang up my current employers, alleging that I was acting as a support worker to one of their clients (lovely, I am off sick.) The client is a family friend who I helped to clean up the house. The social worker then told the friend where I work, what I do and that I was ill!

 

They are now trying to cover their backsides by saying that because this is a vulnerable family they had to make enquiries of all professionals involved with the family. However, I am a family friend, not working as a professional, and I think this is well out of order. It is merely a coincidence that I was a Housing Officer with the Council, and I am currently employed as a HO with a Housing Association!

 

Any advice, pointers, or directions to sites where I can have a look at defending this?

 

Thanks in advance. If I am in the right place I am happy to post the whole saga as it is quite interesting, covers Child protection issues, and a possible complaint about the police! Its a bit lengthy, but if anyone is interested I'll give it a shot - someone might learn from it ay?

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Hello jackieandwayne,

 

Go ahead and post the whole situation.

 

This debt, is it now cleared? Was the debt cleared before the processing of your personal data?

 

Sounds interesting, but I would need to know the full facts before I could comment on whether or not it is data protection breach.

 

Kind Regards

 

The Mould

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Thank you - here goes, and you did ask! LOL!

 

Young friends of mine, husband, wife, 6 kids, 8yrs down to 1 yr and 1 due in 8 weeks (please god let this be it now!). Live in 4 bed council house, a small 4 bed. Children all healthy (7 yr old boy has ADHD being treated by GP) clean, happy and very much loved. However, think Steptoe and Son, the house was filthy.

 

Anyway, last summer, Social Services took the six kids away because of the state of the house. There was no warning,. never any involvement with SS before, no concerns raised by the school, health visitor or GP, but they were hit in the early hours of the morning, with the police, and arrested. Heldf for 9 hours, and then bailed. They turned up on my door step late at night absolutely bush whacked and highly distressed.

 

I worked as a Local Authority HO for 26 years, before leaving to go to a HA. Its the easiest thing for me to do a quick visit the next day, and show them how to clean up. Which I did, and they then spent the entire week, on their own with no help from anyone other than a skip provided by SS, scrubbing the place from top to bottom. I was helping them as a friend, and all I did was make them a list to follow, which they did. I told them to ask the SW if there were concerns about the garden, and if they wanted to get the SW to talk to me about what needed to be done, to give them my name and number. I also agreed that I would accompany them to the case conference just to morally support them and told them I would not be able to participate just be there with the tissues. I know how nasty these things are.

 

Anyway, they asked about the garden and told the social worker that I had asked if that needed to be sorted also. They also said they would like me to go to the conference with them. The minute the SW heard my name, my friends say her attitude changed. She didn;t say anything then, but over the next few days some odd things happened!

 

Firstly, I am off sick from work, have been for a year, due to bullying. I am just at the stage of a compromise deal being sorted. I received an e-mail from the person accused of bullying demanding to know what was going on at a particular property (my friend's address!). This person is not supposed to contact me, so i got in touch with HR and discovered that SS had been on wanting to know how it was i was supporting this family, since my employer did not have the contract for supporting people in that town. I had to explain myself to the director and assure him I was a family friend and not working with the family in any capacity whatsoever. I was advised by my employer not to attend the conference. I can only hope the matter is closed as far as the current employer is concerned!

 

Then I received a call from the friends i was helping having just had a visit from the same SW. The SW said to them "she is off on long term sick from *****, she can;t help you, and I don't think her employers would be too happy to find out she was working with you whilst receiving sick pay" My friends took this as a veiled threat that she would tell my employers if they received help from me! They did not know where I worked or what I did necessarily, and they certainly didn't know that I was ill.

 

Well, as you can imagine, I was furious! I made a complaint to SS officially. They wrote once to apologise and offered to speak to my employer. I declined and asked that they might have to do this if necessary in the future. They were going to investigate the rest of the problem, disclosure of my information. Then it went quiet for 8 weeks, so I gave them a nudge, and I had a chat with someone on the phone again stating that they would investigate. They didn't. So I got in touch witht he complaints officer, and she wrote and apologised and we have now reached a level 2 complaint. This means it is being investigated independently, and my friends have had to speak to the investigators.

 

This is where it was discovered that my personal details had been obtained from my former department at the Local Authority, who happens to be the landlord of my friends! In 2005 when I left, I had a staff tenancy with them for 6 months. I had split up with my partner and was trying to sell my home. Partner was being a twit over it, and stopped paying his half of the mortgage. In an effort to keep the house and sell it i couldn't pay the rent. I then left the local authority and took up this job, owing rent. I agreed that I would pay it as soon as the sale went through, in the meantime they carried on and took it to Court and got an attachement to earnings,. The debt was paid every month for 3.5 years, until I went onto SSP in April 2009. I am now arranging to pay them £1 a week and it is 75% clear anyway. But yes, it was still in existence when they disclosed my information.

 

The investigator requested I write to the former employer and ask what information they held, which I did. They admitted they had given this information to Social Services, and stated they were entitled to do so as they were acting in the interest of a vulnerable family, and all professionals must be checked.

 

However, I was not working as a professional whatsoever, just a normal member of the public helping a family friend - and I note that no other family friends who also helped were checked out in this way!

 

The former employer admits that they knew that my current employer no longer supported people in this town - so how on earth could I have been supporting one of their tenants in an official capacity?

 

They admit they know I am off sick - well, how can I be working in an official capacity if I am off sick?

 

Well, that's the story so far, until the outcome of my complaint, which i will post up here as well, the complaint originally being that my information was disclosed to a client of SS!

 

Any comments? I'm ready for a punch up if need be and later on, my friends will be making a complaint of their own about the way they were treated, the way their children were treated, the police involvement so on and so forth, and guess who's going to back them all the way?

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Hello again jackieandwayne,

 

It seems to me that you need to find out exactly what pupose or puposes they used to disclose your personal data.

 

Obviously it wasn't because of the debt.

 

You were acting soley as a friend, not in a professional capacity.

 

Their argument is the processing was necessary in order to protect the children.

 

Why did they remove the children? And are the family re-united now?

 

From what you have said, I believe the processing was unlawful, but they may be able to contend against this with a powerful argument relating to the welfare of the children concerened.

 

However, again from reading your post, it seems to me that the children were not in any danger, I hope you can sort them out, and the basta'd bullies.

 

Have you stated your case to the ICO?

 

Well, I am not helping you much I know, but I really do hope that you have a successful conclusion to this episode in your life.

 

Perhaps if you can, have a look at the Data Protection Act and the Principles contained in it, this will help you to determine whether or not if the processing was lawful.

 

Good luck for now and the future.:)

 

 

Kind Regards

 

The Mould

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Thanks - what they have said (former employer) is this: "information was disclosed to SS after it was brought to our attention that you were supporting a family who are our tenants". They checked with my current employer who confirmed the long term sick, but then they say "we did already know you were on sick leave because the Attachment of Earnings had ceased".)

 

They say"info was given to SS that ""I did not work for them, who I did work for, and that the current employer did not support people in this town"

 

They say "we havea duty to protect vulnerable adults and children, they have acted lawfully, and under sCH 3 Para7 of the DPA the processing was necessary. "for the exercise of any functions conferred on any person or under an enactment."

 

They say the enactment being the duty to share info under the Childrens Act 1989 or the LA and SS Act 1970.

 

Thats all well and good, however, I was not acting as a professional at all!

 

The children were removed and shared between 2 family members until the first case conference a week later. This was the time when they got the house cleared, decorated and cleaned. Even though there was no complaint with school issues, absences, cleanliness, learning issues, even bloody nits, these children were still all examined for sexual abuse. Nothing whatsoever was found and the last six months have been almost like all professionals actively digging for problems, because they can't find any genuine ones! Even the kids social worker has said off the record that he is not needed, the house is clean, there are no further problems.

 

To this day we have no idea what caused all this to happen - but whatever, the house has now been cleaned and lessons have been learned by my friends.

 

And then of course, there was no need whatsoever for the SW to then disclose my personal details, having once got them from the former employer, to my friends!

 

I think I will make a complaint to the ICO but let the former employer know that I intend to do so and why.

 

Thanks for your help, and if you have other tips and pointers that'd be great!

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Hello again jackieandwayne,

 

I think this also sounds like a Human Rights Issue as far as the family is concerened, If you can prove that there was no grounds, no foundation for the SS to have of acted in the 'over the top' way that it did, you could also prove that the processing of your personal data was unecessary and therefor, the processing was reckless.

 

I hope this will help, I shall continue to study information that relates to your case and if I can think of anything else that might help your case, then I will post it up asap.

 

Kind Regards

 

The Mould

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  • 7 months later...

Hi Chaps. My good mate Susie has a problem. We could do with some input.

 

Her young lad was recently acquitted of a crime at Crown Court. She and I were going through the paperwork before disposing of it when we came across other people's details. They have clearly been picked up and included within this bundle in error.

 

Worse, both the people in each case are known to us!

 

We now know that a certain young lady was so plastered recently that the police had to remove her baby from her care and take it to the parents.

 

We also now know that a very unpleasant male individual had a viscious spat with his partner, (also known to us), we know what a fight he put up when being arrested so on and so forth, we also know there were child protection issues.

 

What should we do? I'd be mortified if I became aware that other persons had information of this type on me, and because of that we chose not to say anything to either of them. Well, anyway the one who had the fight you'd have to be very brave indeed to approach him. Neanderthal man, you know what I mean.

 

Any ideas? It looks as though this is something we could get our teeth into.

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Morning,

As she is now in possession of sensitive data, she has a responsibility not to share it. What I would do is call the police and tell them that she has other peoples data in her possession and to come and collect it. Whilst waiting for them to turn up, copy the forms to the Information Commissioner. This sort of thing should never happen. The police should know this better than most

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  • 1 month later...

Well, this long saga came to an end 21-12-2010! The level 2 investigation came back and told Children and Families that they should not have disclosed that information and that they needed to compensate me. However, C & F apologised again but refused to compensate me. So we went to a fully blown level three complaint. They had to hire a room at a country park, provide a buffet lunch for 12 people including me, and all the admin to go with it. And they were slaughtered by the independent panel who demanded that I be given "financial redress". In the end I accepted £200, because it wasn't about the money it was the principle! And it hurt C & F to have to pay that, you could see it allover the Head of C & F's face at the hearing! They say they will now look at their policies regarding inappropriate disclosure of information. So that's that one.

 

However, during this process it transpires that my former employer, another branch of this Council, really put the boot in for me with my then current employer. To be honest, I was dismissed in 2005 from this employer, unfairly and for something I didn't do. Since I had the other job offer, I just went and got on with that job instead. I was open with the current employer about what had happened, and they were quite understanding and still wanted me to join them so I did not expect three years down the line, whilst I was ill, for someone from my former employer to telephone my current employer and discuss with them the reasons for my dismissal and then to say that I was a risk to vulnerable people!

 

I would never have found any of this out if I had not complained at my treatment by C & F when helping a friend out. The independant investigators discovered the chit chat between the two employers and advised me to complain about it. So, that is where I am at right now, but of course the former employer feels quite justified as they simply hark back to 2005 and that they feel I am a risk around vulnerable people! Rubbish. I don't believe they are judge and jury, it is only their opinion of why we parted company. If I had bothered to defend myself at the time (and it really meant very little to me really, I was more than ready for a change) I would have had them for outright unfair dismissal. In fact I recall one of my female trainee lawyer friends almost slapped me in the face when I told her I couldn;t be bothered! But that was me then and this is me now!

 

So, because the former employer is an ALMO, they seem to think they don't have to have independant investigators. I am just going to write back now and demand a proper level 2 investigation, independantly, as any other member of the public. I am also going to put in a SAR request tomorrow to get all the details of the "chit-chat" about me between the two employers. Then perhaps I shall see who did what, said what etc etc. After the first initial response to my formal complaint to them, I got onto some head honcho in the major complaints dept, at first they said they would look into it to see that it was dealt with fairly, given the circumstances, but after a week she came back and said she couldn;t get involved and I had to go through the former employers complaints procedure - which I am now doing. I suspect my Human Rights may have been breached here, but I don't know so much about that.

 

Any help or pointers would be appreciated and thanks for reading the ramble!

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