Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2005

The Data Protection (Jersey) Law is an information privacy law in the Crown Dependency of the Bailiwick of Jersey, one of the Channel Islands. The latest version is 2005, updating the previous law from 1987 to meet a European Directive. It was adopted on 30 June 2004.

The law implements the European Data Protection Directive of 24 October 1995, which concerns the "protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data". These include restrictions on the gathering, collection, and use of personal data, as well as forcing data collectors to let individuals know how their data has been used. Gatherers of data are called "data controllers" and must register with the Data Protection Commissioner and pay a yearly fee. The law also contains numerous exemptions for journalism, crime investigation, &c. Other Crown dependencies like Guernsey and the Isle of Man have similar laws. The 2005 law was modelled from the UK's Data Protection Act 1998. These laws can all trace lineage back to the European Directive on Data Protection, 95/EC/46 of 1995 and the Council of Europe's European Convention 108, passed in 1981.

The 2005 overhaul of the Data Protection laws was prompted by the aforementioned Data Protection Directive. It restricted the transmission of protected data to countries outside of the European Economic Area unless they had been certified as having 'adequacy' in their own data protection laws. Jersey is considered outside of the European Economic Area, and its 1987 Data Protection law was not adequate, so the restrictions could have harmed Jersey's financial services industry. (Jersey is a major international offshore financial centre and tax haven) In 2008 Jersey achieved 'adequacy status' under the EU rules.

...
Wikipedia