Hi Teens!

Welcome to your space designed with the aim of assisting you to protect your personal information.

You surely share some of your personal information every day with other people, for example your name, address or date of birth. Exercising some caution whilst giving away these information, will help you prevent them from falling into wrong hands. It will also help you reduce the chances of receiving spam or other unwanted marketing.

But you also need to know that information held about you is correct. If it’s not, it could cause problems. For example, you may be refused a job, benefits or credit, or even a place at the college or university you want to get into. In extreme cases, you could even become a potential victim of identity theft (that's when someone pretends to be you, and might try to do things like  getting money out of your bank account, or signing up to things in your name) or be arrested for a crime you didn’t commit.

The Data Protection Act gives you the right to know what information is held about you and sets out rules to make sure this  information is handled properly. Among its other functions, the Data Protection Office enforces the provisions contained in the Data Protection Act.  So, if you have a complaint about any aspect of data protection, we may be able to investigate and take action on your behalf.