Joint Guarantors
Constitutional Affairs
Mr Andrew Hunter (Basingstoke, Independent Conservative)
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will amend the Data Protection Act 1998 to make provision for individuals to be able to make informed decisions about the financial soundness of potential joint guarantors.
Mr David Lammy (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs; Tottenham, Labour)
We have no plans to do so. The Data Protection Act 1998 regulates the processing of information relating to individuals through a general framework of good handling rules known as the data protection principles. The Act confers no rights of access to third party personal data. Disclosures of such data may be made consistently with the Act, provided that they comply with the data protection principles or meet the terms of a "non-disclosure" exemption.