The idea
ALL documents deposited in UK Public Archives should be available for viewing by all patrons with no restrictions on the contents.
The Data Protection Act generates over 800,000 COMPLAINTS every year for the Office of The Information Commissioner. Common sense says quite obviously that this is a flawed Law and should be repealed.
Uninformed Librarians and Archivists are using the DPA to censor and to close, completely OPEN, historic public documents for 100 YEARS which, if they were returned, would be open again! This is a travesty!
This diktat is perpetrated on the ENTIRE UK population without even lifting the telephone to obtain a definitive decision first from the ICO.
Why is it important?
As a repository for some of the most marvelous historic documents that exist anywhere in the world, the UK Government should make it clear in a new Law, that ALL Public and HISTORIC documents after being deposited in Public Archives, specifically for easier access and funded by the Public, should be open for viewing with no restrictions. To do otherwise allows public individuals to act as a CENSOR and to restrict data in any documents using their own PERSONAL outdated ideas and which they feel the Public should not see…..again on a purely personal basis. No Archival documents should be censored by any UK individual for any reason.