The safeguarding of information about
individuals stored on computers, ensuring
privacy. The Council of Europe adopted in
1981 a Data Protection Convention, which led
in the UK to the Data Protection Act 1984.
This requires computer databases containing
personal information to be registered, and
users to process only accurate information
and to retain the information only for a
necessary period and for specified purposes.
Subject to certain exemptions, individuals
have a right of access to their personal data
and to have any errors corrected.