Written question asked by Jenny Willott (Liberal Democrat) on Tuesday, 7 July 2009, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 9 July 2009. It was answered by Jack Straw (Labour) on Monday, 20 July 2009 on behalf of the Ministry of Justice.

Departmental Databases

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) what categories of personal information about members of the public are contained on each relevant database managed by his Department and its agencies; on what date each category of information was first collected; and if he will make a statement;

Answer: Ministry of Justice maintains 82 major databases which support different aspects of the justice system. These databases are of varying size and complexity and cover a wide range of activities, for example, enabling processing and tracking of cases through the court system, scheduling appointments, and tracking systems for monitoring departmental correspondence. Any personal data stored on databases are subject to the Data Protection Act.Following publication of the cross Government Data Handling Review in June 2008, new projects and programmes that hold significant amounts of personal data are obliged to conduct privacy impact assessments.Detailed information relating to individual databases is held within individual projects and business areas and not available centrally. This information could be compiled only at disproportionate cost.

Secondary information