Same applies to any system in the world. I don’t get what your issue is with SMS?
It;s not a problem with SMS, just people implying that because it is accredited it protects infomation better than keeping paper based information in a drawer.
The problem I do have with SMS is that we as volunteers have to use it. When it was introduced it was ‘sold’ as removing admin for the volunteer staff, anyone with even seriously below average intelligence saw through this argument immediately. We at the coalface probably spend as much if not more time doing admin than we ever did before SMS came into being. The biggest selling point was not doing ½ yearly stat returns as it was a bugbear for volunteer staff, which was BS. I could turn it round in less than an hour. The problem was our salaried staff for whatever reason struggled to compile it at Wing. All it needed was a spreadsheet for each squadron with a master sheet totalling the numbers, with a macro to convert the master to values and delete the sqn sheets to retain the master to send to HQAC. Anyone with even the most basic working knowledge of Excel could do easily, but my experience of our salaried admin staff they don’t really have what I would call a good working knowledge of ‘office software’. I had my stat returns in a spreadsheet for several years before the Corps seemingly caught up.
Get your head out of a certain orifice for once in a while and stop whining all the time that it’s ‘the retired officers at Cranwell’s fault’. I’ll give you a clue:
https://www.gov.uk/data-protection/the-data-protection-act
This probably wasn’t conjored up by anyone at HQAC.[/quote]
The DPA doesn’t say that we can’t hold personal information on units.
It states things like needing to keep information safe and only storing what is required… Things that could still be ensured whilst keeping information on units.
A prime example is waiting lists. I’ve got details of youngsters who I won’t be contacting for up to 18 months either written down or on emails. Parents are aware because I tell them.
[quote=“MattB” ]The DPA doesn’t say that we can’t hold personal information on units.
It states things like needing to keep information safe and only storing what is required… Things that could still be ensured whilst keeping information on units.[/quote]
I agree Matt.
And if you read my second post, I said [quote] Sqns had to designate a lockable Personal Information Repository cabinet and that was where you could keep hard copies with the full range of personal data on ie name, address, DoB, phone numbers etc, such as 3822As. We were told that nothing else was to be retained and that included personal data on electronic media. [/quote]