In the United Kingdom, this Act and the Data Protection Act 1998 relate to various aspects of information policy and breaches of this policy, especially with regard to personal information held. For this reason, an Information Commissioner was assigned the task of providing one point of contact for both citizens and the authorities regarding both Acts.

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 made some changes to the Data Protection Act of 1998, with one of the most important changes being that the definition of “data” was extended to cover all personal information held, including both structured and unstructured records of a manual nature. Though the Freedom of Information Act of 2000 increased the existing access rights stipulated in the Data Protection Act 1998, an inquiry by an individual for personal information being held about himself or herself would be exempted under the Freedom of Information Act.

See Also: Privacy.