Prosecutors opt for 'malfeasance' over DPA to charge officials If you are employed in the public sector, you can forget about offences under the Data Protection Act if there is deliberate misuse of personal data. In the absence of a custodial sentence, in more serious cases, prosecutors are increasingly opting for the blunt instrument that is the common law offence of "malfeasance in …
You have to admire the foresight and intelligence of the people that wrote the laws several hundred years ago. Laws they wrote cover abuse that didn't exist at the time of drafting the law. Meanwhile, existing laws are obselete as they are drafted.
If only vandalism covered defacing websites...
You don't understand. There is no law specifying this offense. It's a common-law offense, not a statutory offense.
Something not often appreciated is that most "law" is not statutory, but is common law, derived from judicial precedents over the centuries.
Also note that the three offenses mentioned, mis-, mal-, and non-feasance in public office, are all things which everyone would agree should be against the law. That's the beauty of the common law system: it works without the need for gas bags, do-gooders, and ideologists in Parliament being involved.
Whilst I'm not generally in favour of vague and ill-defined laws (mostly because they're used to criminalise innocent members of the public for doing things that The Powers That Be don't like) this one definitely seems to redress the balance of "One law for them..."!
Forget about piddly slaps on the wrist from the DPA legislation, *THIS* is something that should make those in Public Office really sit up and take notice that there is something that can and will be used to penalise them for being negligent with the public's data.
So if the Police, Council, MOD, whoever has a clearly stated policy of eg No e-mailing spreadsheets, no data on USB sticks, no unencrypted laptops, no posting insecure CDs full of data etc and someone breaks those policies it *won't* simply be a case of "naughty, don't do it again", it will be "You have been found guilty by this Court..."
That should stop such slip-shod behaviour from being so common place!
Malfeasance is just a tort isn't it ?
Misconduct in Public Office is an offence and has more serious consequences.
Councils seems to specialise on nonfeasance - in areas wer they have 'discretion' - and walk away scott free.
Its only hwne there is something like the DPA that removes that discretion (to make a decsion) that malfeasance seems to bite.
Shame that.
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