UK / Data Protection Act

[bill78]

Out of interest has anyone running a community / forum registered as a data controller in the UK under the data protection act?

I can't find explicit answer as to whether it is required or not? It seems to indicate if personal info is being stored and the entity is commercial (i.e. showing ads) then it is necessary to. It's not the end of the world at £30/year.

I was curious what others takes were on this? Especially some of the big UK based sites like @Stuart Wright

 

[Stuart Wright]

I phoned them up a while back asking whether we needed to register.
They asked if people entered any information when they registered that personally identified them.
People are required to enter user name, email address (which is not shared publicly), location and DoB. Apparently none of that on its own can be used to personally identify someone, so we don't have to register.

 

[bill78]

Thanks Stuart, that's very useful.