The Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 is an

information privacy law Information privacy, data privacy or data protection laws provide a legal framework on how to obtain, use and store data of natural persons. The various laws around the world describe the rights of natural persons to control who is using their da ...

in the

Crown Dependency The Crown Dependencies are three offshore island territories in the British Islands that are self-governing possessions of the British Crown: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey, both located in the English Channel and toge ...

of the Bailiwick of

Jersey Jersey ( ; ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey, is an autonomous and self-governing island territory of the British Islands. Although as a British Crown Dependency it is not a sovereign state, it has its own distinguishing civil and gov ...

, one of the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are divided into two Crown Dependencies: the Jersey, Bailiwick of Jersey, which is the largest of the islands; and the Bailiwick of Guernsey, ...

. The latest version is 2018, updating the previous law from 2005 to mirror the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It was adopted on 25 May 2018.

The law

The law implements the European Data Protection Directive of 24 October 1995, which concerns the "protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data". These include restrictions on the gathering, collection, and use of personal data, as well as forcing data collectors to let individuals know how their data has been used.See the UK Act data protection article for a complete breakdown of the Eight Principles Gatherers of data are called "data controllers" and must register with the Data Protection Commissioner and pay a yearly fee. The law also contains numerous exemptions for journalism, crime investigation, &c. Other

Crown dependencies The Crown Dependencies are three dependent territory, offshore island territories in the British Islands that are self-governing possessions of the The Crown, British Crown: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Jersey, Bailiwick of Jersey, both lo ...

Guernsey Guernsey ( ; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; ) is the second-largest island in the Channel Islands, located west of the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy. It is the largest island in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, which includes five other inhabited isl ...

and the

Isle of Man The Isle of Man ( , also ), or Mann ( ), is a self-governing British Crown Dependency in the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Ireland. As head of state, Charles III holds the title Lord of Mann and is represented by a Lieutenant Govern ...

have similar laws. The 2005 law was modelled from the UK's

Data Protection Act 1998 The Data Protection Act 1998 (c. 29) (DPA) was an act of Parliament of the United Kingdom designed to protect personal data stored on computers or in an organised paper filing system. It enacted provisions from the European Union (EU) Data Pr ...

. These laws can all trace lineage back to the European Directive on Data Protection, 95/EC/46 of 1995 and the

Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; , CdE) is an international organisation with the goal of upholding human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. Founded in 1949, it is Europe's oldest intergovernmental organisation, represe ...

's European Convention 108, passed in 1981. The 2005 overhaul of the Data Protection laws was prompted by the aforementioned

Data Protection Directive The Data Protection Directive, officially Directive 95/46/EC, enacted in October 1995, was a European Union directive which regulated the processing of personal data within the European Union (EU) and the free movement of such data. The Data ...

. It restricted the transmission of protected data to countries outside of the

European Economic Area The European Economic Area (EEA) was established via the ''Agreement on the European Economic Area'', an international agreement which enables the extension of the European Union's single market to member states of the European Free Trade Asso ...

unless they had been certified as having 'adequacy' in their own data protection laws. Jersey is considered outside of the

, and its 1987 Data Protection law was not adequate, so the restrictions could have harmed Jersey's financial services industry. (Jersey is a major international offshore financial centre and

tax haven A tax haven is a term, often used pejoratively, to describe a place with very low tax rates for Domicile (law), non-domiciled investors, even if the official rates may be higher. In some older definitions, a tax haven also offers Bank secrecy, ...

) In 2008, Jersey achieved 'adequacy status' under the EU rules. Jersey's law is modified to suit this

finance industry Financial services are service (economics), economic services tied to finance provided by financial institutions. Financial services encompass a broad range of tertiary sector of the economy, service sector activities, especially as concerns finan ...

. One such modification exempts

trusts A trust is a legal relationship in which the owner of property, or any transferable right, gives it to another to manage and use solely for the benefit of a designated person. In the English common law, the party who entrusts the property is k ...

from the law so that they can use the personal information of beneficiaries of the trust without having to disclose certain details of the usage to the beneficiary. This modification was accomplished through a revision called the "Subject Access Exemptions" in 2005. The main office of the law is the Data Protection Commissioner (before 2005, called the Data Protection Registrar). The commissioner for the first several years of the law was Emma Martins There is also a Data Protection Tribunal. In 2011 an attempt was made to unify the Commission of

with that of

so that one Commissioner office would serve both

Notable cases

In 2007 charity groups had to change the way they operated the Jersey Christmas Appeal because they kept a list of the families who were nominated to receive vouchers for food, toys, fuel, and other needs during the holidays. The beneficiaries had to send in signed forms agreeing to be on the list. The law has been used at least two times against Jersey politicians. In 2009, Jersey Senator

Stuart Syvret Stuart Syvret is a former Jersey politician. He held elected office as a member of the States Assembly from 1990 to 2010. From 1999 to 2007, Svyret had executive responsibilities first as president of the Health and Social Services Committee an ...

was arrested on charges of violating the law after he blogged an old 1999 police report on a suspected

serial killer A serial killer (also called a serial murderer) is a person who murders three or more people,An offender can be anyone: * * * * * (This source only requires two people) with the killings taking place over a significant period of time in separat ...

and rapist Nurse that included the suspect's name. The police investigation had been abandoned for lack of evidence and Syvret had at first accepted this. However over the years Syvret came to believe the government of Jersey was incompetent and corrupt, especially after his experiences as Health Minister during the Jersey child abuse investigation 2008. He came to believe that the "Nurse M" (or "Nurse X" in court documents) investigation had been incomplete, that the suspect was still dangerous. This was his alleged motivation for blogging the suspects name in 2009. At trial he argued that his actions fell under the exemptions of the Law, but the Magistrate rejected this. In November 2010 he was convicted of violating Articles 17, 21, and 55 of the Data Protection Law and sentenced to 10 weeks imprisonment and a fine. Assistant Magistrate Bridget Shaw gave the analysis and opinion:

"he must have caused distress to X and his family and risked provoking violence either by or against X. The defendant also risked causing great distress to relatives of the deceased. In my opinion this was done to create a totally unfounded scandal to undermine public confidence in the administration of justice."

In 2011,

Saint Brélade St Brelade (Jèrriais and ) is one of the twelve parishes of Jersey in the Channel Islands. It is around west of St Helier. Its population was 11,012 as of 2021. The parish is the second-largest parish by surface area, covering 7,103 vergé ...

Deputy and Housing Minister Sean Power was forced to resign after he forwarded an email he pulled off a printer in the States Building. The email discussed Syvret.

External links

Text of the Law as it was enacted
from jerseylaw.je
Current law as amendedOffice of the Information Commissioner
Jersey

, the 2009 blog posting over which Syvret was convicted.

References

{{reflist , refs= Commission Decision of 8 May 2008
pursuant to Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the adequate protection of personal data in Jersey, Eur-Lex, europa.eu, retrieved 2012-9-15 {{usurped,
Islands to join forces on data protection
} Monday 19 September 2011, thisisjersey.com, retrieved 2012-9-15 Annual Reports
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060716170227/http://www.dataprotection.gov.je/cms/GeneralInformation/AnnualReports/ , date=16 July 2006 , 2008, Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, Jersey, retrieved 2012-9-15 Annual Reports
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060716170227/http://www.dataprotection.gov.je/cms/GeneralInformation/AnnualReports/ , date=16 July 2006 , 2006, Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, Jersey, retrieved 2012-9-15 Annual Reports
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060716170227/http://www.dataprotection.gov.je/cms/GeneralInformation/AnnualReports/ , date=16 July 2006 , 2005, Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, Jersey, retrieved 2012-9-15 Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995
on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data. Eur-Lex.europa.eu, retrieved 2012-9-15 {{usurped,
Now Data Protection threatens Christmas
} Saturday 24 November 2007, thisisjersey.com, retrieved 2012-9-14
Council of Europe, Strasbourg, 28.I.1981, coe.int, retrieved 2012-9-14
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060828114837/http://www.dataprotection.gov.je/cms/AboutUs/DataProtectionHistory.htm , date=28 August 2006 , Jersey Office of the Data Protection Commissioner. retrieved 2012-9-14 Syvret replaced the name of the Nurse with the term "Nurse M" on his blog. See for exampl

blogspot.com, retrieved 2012-9-14 {{cite web, url=http://www.zyen.com/GFCI/GFCI%208.pdf, title=The Global Financial Centres Index 8, publisher= Z/Yen, year=2010, access-date=15 September 2012, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101011091643/http://www.zyen.com/GFCI/GFCI%208.pdf, archive-date=11 October 2010, url-status=dead Jersey politician Stuart Syvret bailed pending appeal
18 November 2010, bbc.co.uk, retrieved 2012-09-14 Before: Assistant Magistrate Mrs B. Shaw, Between Stuart Syvret and the Attorney General and the Connetable of Grouville, retrieved 2012-09-14 Subject Access Exemptions
2005/2006, from jerseylaw.je {{Cite web , title=DATA PROTECTION (JERSEY) LAW 2005 , url=https://www.jerseylaw.je/laws/enacted/Pages/L-02-2005.aspx , access-date=2022-03-30 , website= Jersey Legal Information Board Minister resigns after breaching data protection code
2 February 2011. bbc.co.uk. retrieved 2012-9-14
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724230201/http://www.dataprotection.gov.je/cms/default.htm , date=24 July 2008 , Jersey government, gov.je, retrieved 2012-9-14 Jersey: Data Protection In Jersey And Other Offshore Jurisdictions
23 July 2008 Article by Wendy Benjamin, mondaq.com, retrieved 2012-09-14 Jersey: Tax haven or international finance centre?
2009 2 3, BBC.co.uk, retrieved 2012-9-14 Law of Jersey Data laws of Europe