Note: the extract below offers authoritative guidance from the Office of the Information Commissioner that the fairness requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998 require a 1471 erasure facility. This discharges Action Point 8/2 of the minutes of the 8^th CLI interest Group meeting.

extract from letter dated 07/02/02 from Philip Jones, Assistant Commissioner at the OIC to Frank Phillips, Secretary CLI-IG

1471 erasure

You have asked me to confirm that the DPA98 requires that operators offer 1471 erasure.

As I understand it operators introduced the 1471 service identifying the number of the last inward caller without subscribers having expressly agreed to this. I believe the current default position is that the 1471 last number identification facility is enabled though, and I am not aware that this is particularly well publicised, subscribers may request the facility to be withdrawn. Further, a user may withhold CLI presentation (or allow presentation where the subscriber has chosen CLI withheld as a default) on a per call basis. Therefore, though the caller can control whether CLI presentation is available, the called party does not have the ability on a per call basis to erase the presentation of the CLI of the last inward call simply by entering a code on the handset. They can only do so by making, or arranging for someone else to make, another call to the number in question.

I consider, therefore, that there is a privacy issue from the point of view of the called party where, for example, a call is made to a residential number by someone who knows that the person he/she wants to call is likely to be alone. This could result in another member of the household, some hours later, dialling 1471 and identifying the number of the caller and possibly from that identifying the likely caller. I appreciate that if the called party is concerned and remembers to do so it would be possible to ask the called party to ring back, having dialled the CLI withheld code. Where the call is not answered then unless the person the caller was trying to contact dials 1471 and then arranges for another inward call to be made the record of the last incoming call will remain.

The crucial question is whether the fairness requirements of the DPA98 actually require an erasure facility.

The numbers of individual subscribers will be personal data in the hands of their service provider. Where service providers enable a 1471 last calling number identification service they facilitate access to a number which may be both personal data concerning the caller and the called party. Assuming that the service provider of the individual subscriber receiving the call would hold the calling number linked to the called number, even if but briefly and even though not used for billing purposes, then the calling number will be personal data relating to the called number.

Therefore, by providing a 1471 last number identification service without 1471 erasure, the service provider would be allowing access to personal data without the called party (whether subscriber or not) having a simple means to prevent this. The fact that, in the hands of the service provider, this would be personal data about the subscriber whether or not the calling party was trying to contact the subscriber or someone else within the household, is not, in my view, significant.

Finally, I note from the minutes of the Eighth Meeting of the CLI Interest Group, the question of whether the service should be for a subscriber or authorised user was raised with the example given of a baby-sitter using 1471 erasure to delete information the subscriber might wish to have access to. I see no practical way to restrict such a service to the subscriber. Any user, rather that just the subscriber, can use the 1471 last caller identification facility and may do so to access information the subscriber may not wish them to. It follows, therefore, that any user should be able to use the 1471 erasure facility.