St Andrew South Member of Parliament Mark Golding has proposed that the Government introduce a threshold to exempt micro businesses and small non-governmental organisations such as churches from the Data Protection Act.

With the passage of the legislation in Parliament on Tuesday, Golding said he had pointed out, during the committee’s deliberations on the bill, that it would be extremely difficult to get many micro operators to comply with the law.

Under the new legislation, a data controller could be any small business or church that has computers and stores information on its workers, clients, or, in the case of the religious body, its congregation.

Himself an attorney, Golding indicated that the law sought to strike a balance between freedom of the press and the role of the media and how they use information versus the rights of citizens to maintain privacy regarding their own data.

“If my data is abused in any way, is shared without my information, I must be able to have an originated private right of action to sue anybody, private business or even the Government, as we were able to legislate in the Fair Competition Act, to recover damages for such abuses,” he added.