Data Privacy

shayser

The terms and conditions that must be agreed to before a support issue can be logged via the online form with Dell include this:

Any material or information transmitted to or posted to this Site by any means will be treated as non-confidential and non-proprietary and may be disseminated or stored or used by Dell or its affiliates for any purpose whatsoever...

So they can do what they llke with it? I don't know the law regarding data privacy but would this statement contravene any law?

I read some documents at dataprotection.ie but the language is a bit above me to be honest Emailed dataprotection and waiting for a response, wouldn't expect to hear anything till Monday.

BrianD

Depends where the customer service department is located. If it is "located" in the USA, Irish or EU privacy laws would not apply.

shayser

BrianD wrote:

Depends where the customer service department is located. If it is "located" in the USA, Irish or EU privacy laws would not apply.

Thanks. This is probably standard practice then I guess...

If what you say is true, it means an American company can setup in Ireland (as Dell have done) and operate outside of Irish Law. And any company, Irish included, can locate their customer service dept or support dept. overseas, or store their data overseas, and bypass the law??

Still don't know if it's allowable is Irish law for a company to do what they please with the details they collect. Must be some restrictions. It'll be interesting to hear what the Data Commissioner has to say.

mneylon

My interpretation of the legislation is that if they have any offices in Ireland their privacy policies should comply with Irish law and they should be registered with the Data Privacy commissioner as a data processor. The location of their customer service department should not be the deciding factor.