Use only the personal information you need

If you meet the criteria to apply the journalism exemption, you no longer have to comply with the requirement to use only the personal information you need. This section of the code sets out what the legislation says and how to comply when you are not applying the journalism exemption (See Apply the journalism exemption).

What does the legislation say?

9.1 You must use personal information that is:

• adequate (enough to do what you need to do);
• relevant (has a rational link to that purpose); and
• limited (not more than you need for that purpose).

9.2 You must also use accurate personal information. This also involves considering how much you need to be factually accurate and not misleading (see Use accurate personal information).

9.3 You must only use personal information that is relevant.

How do we comply?

9.4 Before you collect any personal information, you should think about why you need it. This will help you to decide whether you have the information you need for your journalistic purpose.

9.5 You should keep in mind what you are trying to achieve and aim to collect only the personal information you need to do that efficiently.

9.6 Using irrelevant personal information may cause significant harm to people, especially when you use special category or criminal offence data. This is because this type of personal information is more likely to interfere with someone’s fundamental rights or open them up to discrimination (see Use personal information lawfully).

9.7 Even if personal information is not obviously relevant to a specific story, it can still be relevant to your wider journalistic purpose. However, you should be able to justify this (see Keep personal information only for as long as you need it).

9.8 To make sure you do not use excessive personal information, you should think about what personal information you need at the different points in the journalistic process as your story develops.

9.9 You should periodically review the information you hold to make sure you do not have more than you need for your purpose (see Keep personal information only for as long as you need it).

Reference notes

These reference notes support the Data protection and journalism code of practice (the code) but are not part of the statutory code itself.