Please define "Manual Intervention"

[Untouchaball]

Hi,

 

I sent a letter, including a cheque for £10, for a complete list of transactions and charges against my account for the last 6 years, to Barclays, towards the end of March. The letter was the 'Data Protection Act Disclosure Request' template in the libraries section of the forum. I received a letter back from the Barclays asking for me to explain the 'Manual Intervention' comment in the letter. I wrote back, including a copy of the original letter saying a I felt it was quite clear, and could they please proceed with my request. I have since recieved another letter from Peter Townsend, Manager, Barclays Data Protection, who wrote:

 

I am in receipt of your letter dated 31st March. As previously, your request copy statements is being handled without charge. In so far as the term "Manual Intervention" is concerned, you have not described what records or class of information is of interest to you. The legislation is specific in Part 2 Section 7(3) by advising "A data controller is not obliged to comply with a request under this section unless he is supplied with such information as he may reasonably require in order to satisfy himself as to the identity of the person making the request and to locate the information which thet person seeks." I must also advise that the legislation does not present organisations with either obligation to provide comments additional to the information itself or an interpretation of that information; this apart from the explanation of non-obvious codes and abbreviations. As the positions remains unclear to the Bank, your cheque is returned herewith.

 

It looks to me, that this guy is trying to put me off with a load of nonsense. Is any of this valid? Please let me know what the forum thinks and how to best move forward with this.

[Bookworm]

Ok. They're really playing silly buggers with this one now...

 

The legislation is specific in Part 2 Section 7(3) by advising "A data controller is not obliged to comply with a request under this section unless he is supplied with such information as he may reasonably require in order to satisfy himself as to the identity of the person making the request and to locate the information which thet person seeks."

 

What this actually means is that 1 - he has to know who you are for sure before he gets the info (which is not in question here), 2 - he has to have enough information to get you the info, eg account number etc..

 

However, since you want the info, and not an argument at this point, I suggest you write back saying that what you want as well as the details of transactions & charges applied to your account since xxx, you are asking for anything that might show when an employee actually checked your account, allowed/disallowed a transaction, applied a charge, sent a letter. You want the date and time of such intervention, the first name or initials of the staff in question for each of those interventions. Should they not be in a position ot provide such information, it will be taken that the said intervention never happpened, and the bank will not be capable of using that defense in court.

Furthermore, you want to remind them that despite their every effort of obstruction, the clock is still ticking, and that they have x days (from your 1st letter) to comply.

 

That should do it.

[jonni2bad]

As per Bookworms reply really, although you might wish to add that if they are not sure what manual intervention means, or how it might be of importance to both parties, that they should contact their own legal department for further clarification.

[Untouchaball]

This topic was closed on 2019-03-08.

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