I only want the names of the kids in my sons class

[Festivefly]

Is it normal practice to refuse to give you names of your sons class mates. I only wanted to write christmas cards for him as he doesn't no his bum from his elbow. But get the data protection palaver thrown at me. What about my right to know who my son spends his day with? I'm only going to have to go round now and ask everyones name, its ridiculous

Roscoe i've only just noticed that tom-foolery, any more jokes like that and you will be thrown out of this thread

Right... done some research. This was found on: www.dca.gov.uk/foi/sharing/faqs.htm - a FAQ about legal data sharing.

Does the Data Protection Act 1998 give me the power to share data with another Department?

No. The Data Protection Act (DPA) does not provide a power to share data. The Act requires data to be processed fairly and lawfully (the first data protection principle) but does not, however, specify the means by which processing is to be regarded as "lawful". You must, therefore, be certain that you have a lawful basis for the data sharing/processing in question (whether by virtue of legislation, the common law, or under Crown prerogative).

I read that to mean that the data protection act isn't about how you share that data but how you can legally access the data that is kept about you and have erroneous data amended.

What I think they might be getting at, FF is privacy laws - but these cover information not necessarily out in the public domain - which a list of names (when they're available on coatpegs) obviously isn't.

We were asked at the beginning of term if we wanted to be included in a list given out to parents, which included names addresses and phone numbers. those who didn't want to be on it said so, and the rest were printed up and distributed.