With summer and GDPR just around the corner, now is the ideal time to tackle that old cobweb covered data.
So in the spirit of mucking in together we’d love the whole party to join in with a Data Spring Clean on Sunday 20th May 2018 . You don’t need bleach, a feather duster or polish. All you need is your computer, any data which is no longer of any use and possibly a shredder.
Before beginning check the Data Retention Rules available on the website.
Any data which does not meet these rules, is no longer within our scope to keep and should be deleted. It doesn’t matter if it’s some canvass sheets from 2003 or a petition, join us in throwing it away.
This tidy up shouldn’t only apply to data that falls outside of the retention policies. Equally it is important to consider whether the data is useful. Where there it isn’t, then it’s time look at getting rid of it, especially where it is backed up elsewhere.
To this end a membership list from June 2017 won’t be useful now, as a more recent version will be on Salesforce.
Practically speaking this Spring Clean might mean a bit of time deleting files from your desktop to make sure everything that needs to go is gone. Of course do make sure that any new data from the local elections has been uploaded on to Connect, Nationbuilder, Prater Raines or whichever system you are using before though.
A job shared is a job halved. So we’re encouraging as many members to get involved on Sunday 20th May so that the Party is ready for GDPR.
With email addresses, if a set meet the guidelines to seek reconsent then do not throw it away until 26th May when GDPR will be in full force.
We’ve mentioned before about the need to minimize what data we hold with Download, Use, Delete. This Spring Clean is in the same spirit. The less data we hold on personal computer the less likely it is to be stolen or used incorrectly.
* Sanjay Samani and Richard Kember lead the GDPR Team in LDHQ.
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9 Comments
I don’t understand any of this post. I suspect that a large number of party members don’t understand it either. I wonder if the House of Lords will have to shred that petition calling for Charles I to be beheaded. One thing is for sure – historians of the future will not have any material to work on… Doers anyone agree with me that the whole world is going slightly bonkers?
Goodness gracious me, the good Lord Tony is right and ‘slightly’ bonkers is an understatement..
We would never have had Asquith’s letters to Venetia Stanley if Squiff had used an ipad and sent her an email. Kitchener, Sir John French, Jacky Fisher and Sir Ian Hamilton might all still be heroes.
GDPR is increasingly becoming the German Democratic Peoples Republic as far as future historians are concerned.
Well indeed, this is just what I got involved in politics to do !
GDPR specifically includes an exemption for historical archives, so those letters are rightly safe, Tony.
Mark
I think Lord Greaves is pointing out that the future’s historical archives might get deleted now, before they become historical.
And GDPR doesn’t apply to dead people…….
Nick B
“the future’s historical archives might get deleted now“
I don’t see why. The sender can keep a copy and the receiver (in most cases) can keep a copy.
There is however a broader question unrelated to GDPR. If people keep what might become historical correspondence or photographs as data, rather than as hard copies, then it depends on the accessibility of that data as to whether it will be able to be saved for future generations. On a floppy disk? On ancient hard drives with encryption? On internet sites with passwords which die with the owner? In Clouds with similarly disappearing passwords and expiring subscriptions? It will be quite a challenge…. I can see a new breed of digital investigative historians emerging….
>I can see a new breed of digital investigative historians emerging….
That is a polite way to describe them! 🙂
Their present day incarnations can be found in call centres busily phoning everyone again, just in case, because the PPI deadline is looming.
The expectation is that they will in due course be transforming into GDPR compliance checkers – there are reasonable expectations that many businesses won’t be fully compliant immediately…
GDPR does indeed have an exemption for historical archives, but our party’s policy seems to be that we can keep things for historical purposes for only 15 years!
I was shown some wonderful old Focuses from 1970s last night, which under our party’s policy should now be destroyed. I cannot believe the GDPR requires this – surely this is our overzealous interpretation?
Hi there David. There is an explicit mention of archiving in the Party’s Retention Policy:
“A variety of information, including personal data is often shared with historical archives. A review of information currently in archive from the Party will be undertaken in 2018. A formal archiving policy will be developed at that point and personal data retention in archives will be included in this policy. The Party’s Privacy Policy will be updated accordingly.”