getting transaction data under Data Protection Act

peterwhit

Hi,

I'm not sure if this is the wrong forum, but given AIB's failure to provide Excel or similar files for personal account transaction data, could you get it via the Data Protection Act?

From this thread:

"Referring to the definition of personal data in the UK Data Protection Act 1998, viz. “data which relate to a living individual who can be identified”, the court took the view that in order to amount to personal data, the data concerned must affect a person’s privacy either in the sense of
being biographical in a significant sense or having the individual as its focus rather than some other transaction or event."

I'd imagine one's personal transactions could be construed as "being biographical in a significant sense or having the individual as its focus rather than some other transaction or event."

Any thoughts?

Peter

BuffyBot

Don't they already provide this via statements?

There is no obligation on them to give it into a specific format.

peterwhit

1: eStatements were introduced only a few years ago. Even if I downloaded them for free in the one-year window that they're available, they don't go back to the beginning of my account. If I order statements, I have to pay per page IIRC.

2: this point is not an obligation, but the eStatements are in PDF format only. Useless for my own excel analysis.

I'd like a simple CSV file of all my transactions from account creation. Kills two birds with one stone.

Nervous Wreck

peterwhit wrote: »

1: eStatements were introduced only a few years ago. Even if I downloaded them for free in the one-year window that they're available, they don't go back to the beginning of my account. If I order statements, I have to pay per page IIRC.

2: this point is not an obligation, but the eStatements are in PDF format only. Useless for my own excel analysis.

I'd like a simple CSV file of all my transactions from account creation. Kills two birds with one stone.

Banks charge for duplicate statements only so if you've to pay for them, it means you've previously received statements for those dates and, as such, the bank has fulfilled their obligatiion. Doubt you'd have any luck going down the data protection route tbh...

peterwhit

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

Banks charge for duplicate statements only so if you've to pay for them, it means you've previously received statements for those dates and, as such, the bank has fulfilled their obligatiion. Doubt you'd have any luck going down the data protection route tbh...

Hmm. If you also mean the paper versions from yonks ago, you might be right. But maybe I'll ask the DPC directly, get it from the horse's mouth...

Anyone

The bank gave you the info you wanted though, how is this anything to do with Data Protection?

You are better off trying to find out how to turn a pdf file into an excel file.

peterwhit

Anyone wrote: »

The bank gave you the info you wanted though, how is this anything to do with Data Protection?

You are better off trying to find out how to turn a pdf file into an excel file.

I don't have PDFs of the data I want (going back before estatements). Converting those i do have, if possible at all, is a major PITA. I'm not organised enough to have paper statements of everything.

They have it all sitting there in a database. They don't make it available. I'd like to get it, perhaps via unusual methods.

Anyone

Ok, but have they provided you with the information you requested? If so(irregardless of the format) it is not a Data Protection Issue.

Jim2007

peterwhit wrote: »

I don't have PDFs of the data I want (going back before estatements). Converting those i do have, if possible at all, is a major PITA. I'm not organised enough to have paper statements of everything.

They have it all sitting there in a database. They don't make it available. I'd like to get it, perhaps via unusual methods.

First of all you have a complete misunderstanding of the DPA, it purpose is to provide you with details of the personal data and in a report format, nothing else. Secondly the purpose of the act is to minimise the amount of data held, so once transaction data is no longer needed for business processing reasons it is deleted - all that remains will be archived copies of the statements issued to you.

In 20 years I've never come across a bank that did not have housekeeping procedures to clean down and remove unnecessary data on a regular basis.

Toots

If you're looking for statements pre-2005 or thereabouts, they probably aren't held on a computer system anymore. They're held on microfiche so it's not as simple as emailing you a spreadsheet - some poor sod would have to actually trawl through the fiche to find the statements you want, print them out (they'll be pretty poor quality, I can assure you) and then send the hard copies to you. You'll still end up having to maunally enter all the data onto your spreadsheet and you'll be a fair few euro poorer for it.

peterwhit

Toots* wrote: »

If you're looking for statements pre-2005 or thereabouts, they probably aren't held on a computer system anymore. They're held on microfiche so it's not as simple as emailing you a spreadsheet - some poor sod would have to actually trawl through the fiche to find the statements you want, print them out (they'll be pretty poor quality, I can assure you) and then send the hard copies to you. You'll still end up having to maunally enter all the data onto your spreadsheet and you'll be a fair few euro poorer for it.

Ok thanks Toots and Jim2007, that's the kind of info I was looking for, as depressing as it is. My idealistic vision of always-online data is clearly a pipe dream. Maybe I'll put up with eStatements only, and work out how to process them.