Legal issues for information professionals .4. Attitudes to data protection amongst UK media librarians

This paper describes the results of a survey carried out amongst a large number of UK media librarians and information scientists, and a smaller number of UK journal ists. Their knowledge of, and attitudes towards, the UK Data Protection Act and the EC Draft Directive on data protection were measured. The results demonstrated a reasonable level of knowledge about both pieces of legislation. It also showed that there is considerable concern within the UK media regarding the proposed EC Directive. The paper concludes that journalists are likely to ignore the Draft Directive, and that the Draft will impose intolerable burdens on the informa tion science community in the media. The paper also recom mends that the Association of UK Media Librarians under takes a data protection awareness campaign for its members.