The Data Protection Act is a piece of legislation in effect in the United Kingdom for controlling the permissible extent to which data can be compiled, collected and registered in regard to the personal details of people. Any Data Protection Act summary which seeks to elucidate the functioning of the Data Protection Act and its effect on those people living in the United Kingdom should refer, at least in part, to the legislative history of this law.

In this regard, then, the main framework for the Data Protection Act should be noted as deriving from a law which was passed in 1998 to modify earlier legislation which had been passed in 1984. Moreover, the basic Data Protection Act summary had to be altered somewhat after further legislative changes were enacted in 2003 to change some of the provisions contained in the legislation.

In that the Data Protection Act was passed with a mind to specifically provide for eight specific principles related to information processing, any effective Data Protection Act summary should be further sought after as providing for an understanding of these points.

In this respect, the Data Protection Act summary which has been issued specifies that U.K. personal details cannot be used non-consensually, for non-specified purposes, for unspecified periods of time, or freely outside of the European Economic Area, and that they must accessible to the people they pertain to, and open to such corrections as those individuals might issue, as well as adequately guarded against security violations and breaches.

The current Data Protection Act principles in place and effect in the United Kingdom provide for the security and general inaccessibility of personal information pertaining to U.K. citizens and residents, and as such can first be traced back to the Data Protection Act 1984. That being said, the present state in which the Data Protection Act principles are held and maintained by the U.K. government have more to do with the later legislation which was put into effect in 1998 and, later, in 2003.

The Data Protection Act 1984 did play a constructive part in the general debate and discussion over this area of the law, establishing such Data Protection Act principles as the responsibility of the custodians of information placed in electronic form to prevent general access to such data as might occur with the knowledge or consent, and accordingly against the wishes, of the people to whom the information pertains. For such reasons, Parliament under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decided to enact the law comprising the Data Protection Act 1984.

Soon thereafter, another piece of legislation followed the Data Protection Act 1984, one also pertaining to the importance of Data Protection Act principles, referred to as the Access to Personal Files Act 1987. The need for change to the Data Protection Act 1984, and to its aforementioned supporting pillar for Data Protection Act principles, derived from the passage of the European Data Protection Directive. According to the strengthened Data Protection Act principles thus mandated, the Data Protection Act 1984 was accordingly strengthened.

The Data Protection Act 1998 provides the main legal framework for the restricted accessibility of records pertaining to the private details of the lives of U.K. citizens and residents.

In this regard, a Data Protection Act 1998 summary can provide the eight basic principles which were enacted as enforceable provisions through the passage of the Data Protection Act 1998, as pertain to the need to defend archives of private data from any attempts to, maliciously, mistakenly, or otherwise wrongfully, gain access to them without the consent of and against the wishes of the people to whom they refer.

In this respect, the Data Protection Act 1998 was passed into law as an Act of Parliament not simply for its own sake, but also as a means of modifying, or replacing, the older precedent of the 1984 Data Protection Act legislation. In addition, any Data Protection 1998 summary accessed by a person to whom this legislation refers should be aware that it also supplemented and replaced the previous Access to Personal Files Act 1987, and that it was later modified in its own right by the passage of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC) Regulations 2003 legislation by Parliament.

A Data Protection Act 1998 summary will indicate that, for U.K. citizens, they may create and issue personal records to the proper authorities safely. These documents will not be subject to unauthorized usage, access, or periods of maintenance. Moreover, the people to whom they refer can expect regular updates, and may effect corrections if the need arises.