Does the DPA need amending?

[Theodoric]

There are now 2 recent cases that I know about where the authorities have used the Data Protection Act as an excuse for their own incompetence.

The first was the Humberside police destroying information concerning Ian Huntley.

The second was on the London local news tonight where it was reported that an elderly couple had died because their gas was cut off for non-payment. The excuse of British Gas was that the DPA prevented them from reporting the case to social services. In fact, this is just an evasion on British Gas's part. They had a legal duty to do something about it.

My gut feeling is that many organisations are simply using the DPA as an easy excuse to explain away their mistakes.

[Bex]

i think it is dispicable using the DPA in this way, it is there to protect people yes, but it should not be used to protect the big businesses and their cock ups....

in the case of the old couple, that is just flipping terrible, it should have been their duty to report such things, but i wonder what the DPA would actually say about this (i should know the DPA inside out, just done a big test on it)