Credit card wont give me 6 years statements for charges!!

maxineperry

Can anyone help? I recently requested my 6 years credit card statements from barclays with the letter i downloaded from the website. However, barclays have wrote back and only supplied my last three years statements, with the following explaination:

"Statements held prior to May 2004 are stored on microfilm which is a means of storage that does not fall within the defination of "Relevant filing system" under the data protection act 1998, nor within the bounds of what we are obliged to provide in response to your data subject access request as set out on the information commisioners website".

They are saying it is a gesture of goodwill to provide the last 3 years, but most of my big charges are prior to this.

Can they do that??

GeorgeUK

I have cobbled this together from a few different leters i have found and added some extra. Edit as you see fit.


LETTER BEFORE ACTION
Section 7 – Data Protection Act 1998


Dear


ACCOUNT NUMBERS:


I am in receipt of the documents that you have supplied in response to my Data Protection Act information request dated [date]. The disclosure of personal data is incomplete in that at least the following documents are missing:

1) You have failed to provide a complete list of transactions and charges. All you have sent is a computer printout with no mention of dates at which charges had been applied, or how much were the individual charges.
2) You have provided no notes, or documents relating to instances of personal human intervention, nor confirmed that any did indeed take place at any time.

This is not an exhaustive list by any means, it is just an example of some of the information I am missing.

You have stated that statements prior to June 2004 are manually stored on microfiche and do not fall within the Data Subject Access provisions.
Section 1 (1) of the Data Protection Act 1998 states:
"any set of information relating to individuals to the extent that, although the information is not processed by means of equipment operating automatically in response to instructions given for that purpose, the set is structured either by reference to the individual or to criteria relating to individuals, in such a way that specific information relating to a particular individual is readily accessible".

Furthermore, recent communication with the Information Commissioner’s office has brought further clarification:
“(…) if the information is filed by account number this information would be considered to form part of a relevant filing system as it would be similar to searching a computer data base for a specific account number.”

Since you are unwilling to provide the information, I have no choice but to contact the Information Commissioner's Office and request they inspect your microfiche records to determine if they fall under the scope of the Act or if Barclays is breaching its statutory obligations. It is my opinion that the information IS readily accessible, IS filed in a relevant filing system, and therefore DOES fall within DSA provisions.

The time for compliance with my request has now expired. If you do not comply fully with my Subject Access Request within 7 days, I shall apply to the County Court for an order together with damages at the discretion of the court under s.7(9) Data Protection Act 1998.

Yours sincerely,


There seem to be a few banks trying this tactic, but Abbey National and Barclays seem to be the main 2. This thread sheds a little more light on the matter and post 14 in particular.
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/abbey-bank/2440-abbey-data-protection-act.html

Edit: Also found this. Hope it helps. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/announcement.php?f=7&a=90
Time for bed now... zzzzzzz

Iamthesmartestmanalive

GeorgeUK wrote: »

I have cobbled this together from a few different leters i have found and added some extra. Edit as you see fit.


LETTER BEFORE ACTION
Section 7 – Data Protection Act 1998


Dear


ACCOUNT NUMBERS:


I am in receipt of the documents that you have supplied in response to my Data Protection Act information request dated [date]. The disclosure of personal data is incomplete in that at least the following documents are missing:

1) You have failed to provide a complete list of transactions and charges. All you have sent is a computer printout with no mention of dates at which charges had been applied, or how much were the individual charges.
2) You have provided no notes, or documents relating to instances of personal human intervention, nor confirmed that any did indeed take place at any time.

This is not an exhaustive list by any means, it is just an example of some of the information I am missing.

You have stated that statements prior to June 2004 are manually stored on microfiche and do not fall within the Data Subject Access provisions.
Section 1 (1) of the Data Protection Act 1998 states:
"any set of information relating to individuals to the extent that, although the information is not processed by means of equipment operating automatically in response to instructions given for that purpose, the set is structured either by reference to the individual or to criteria relating to individuals, in such a way that specific information relating to a particular individual is readily accessible".

Furthermore, recent communication with the Information Commissioner’s office has brought further clarification:
“(…) if the information is filed by account number this information would be considered to form part of a relevant filing system as it would be similar to searching a computer data base for a specific account number.”

Since you are unwilling to provide the information, I have no choice but to contact the Information Commissioner's Office and request they inspect your microfiche records to determine if they fall under the scope of the Act or if Barclays is breaching its statutory obligations. It is my opinion that the information IS readily accessible, IS filed in a relevant filing system, and therefore DOES fall within DSA provisions.

The time for compliance with my request has now expired. If you do not comply fully with my Subject Access Request within 7 days, I shall apply to the County Court for an order together with damages at the discretion of the court under s.7(9) Data Protection Act 1998.

Yours sincerely,


There seem to be a few banks trying this tactic, but Abbey National and Barclays seem to be the main 2. This thread sheds a little more light on the matter and post 14 in particular.
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/abbey-bank/2440-abbey-data-protection-act.html

Edit: Also found this. Hope it helps. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/announcement.php?f=7&a=90
Time for bed now... zzzzzzz

Theres not a lot of point in sending that if microfilm isnt covered under the DPA

The OP needs to know if thats the case

GeorgeUK

Sorry - missed the microfilm part. It is the same case for microfiche and microfilm.

In the 1st link i provided, there is a post which contains a letter from the Information Commissioner (post 14) who states:

The Commissioner's interpretation of the Court of Appeal judgment was that unless a manual filing system was considered 'highly structured' it would not fall within the scope of the Act

It is our view that Abbey's microfiche are stored within a relevant filing system and that it is likely that they have contravened the sixth principle of the Act, which is concerned with the rights of individuals, including subject access

Taken from the ICO website: http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/data_protection/detailed_specialist_guides/data_protection_act_legal_guidance.pdf

The term “relevant filing system” means:-
“any set of information relating to individuals to the extent that, although the information is not processed by means of equipment operating automatically in response to instructions given for that purpose, the set is structured, either by reference to individuals or by reference to criteria relating to individuals, in such a way that specific information relating to a particular individual is readily accessible”.

As the microfilm will be structured for searching purposes then it is a "relevant filing system" and falls within the definition of "data" in the DPA.

The Act doesn't specify each type of data storage, but does specify what is considered a relevant filing system. Sorry if i hadn't made it clear enough. Was a bit tired at the time.

maxineperry

thanks for the time and effort everyone has made to help me

kindest regards

maxie