Data Protection – A Message from the Acting Chairman.
You will have received a message from me in late April 2018 asking you to ‘opt in’ to receiving mailings from the OCA in order to continue receiving material from us. I sent that letter in good faith, with the concurrence of the Committee, on our then current understanding of the impact of the new General Data Protection Regulation (GPDR) which was coming into force on 25 May 2018. My message was based on a letter to members from a different (ex-governmental) association - to which an OCA committee member also belongs - and on my reading of the GDPR website. If you are like me, you will have been bombarded with similar messages from a variety of bodies, with even shorter deadlines. It is possible that we would have remained within the law without the opt-in but, in hindsight, I still feel that it was better to be safe than sorry and we are now in a state of grace. Nobody who has not opted in will in fact lose their membership but we may alter the wording of some of our membership material to ensure that we comply with the new legal framework on data protection. Rest assured that we shall handle your personal data in accordance with GDPR.
Thank you for your understanding.
Cortland Fransella
13 May 2018.