The Legislations That Protect Individuals and Groups Form Misuse of ICT In this section I am going to demonstrate my knowledge of the legislation by describing it and explaining how it protects me. I will also explain what it does and does not do for me. What is legislation? Legislation means a law or a set of laws, which have been made by parliament. With many people using computers, and many people storing valuable information I them i.e. bank account numbers etc. there are also many people who try to get this information with the intent to misuse it. In order to tackle these problems new legislations have been made. These new legislations include Data Protection Act, The Computer Misuse Act, The Health And Safety At Work Act, and the Regulation Of Investigatory Powers Act. Below I will look at all the mentioned legislations in close detail and explain what they mean, how it protects me, other people i.e. adults (and in employments), my community and look at the positive and negative aspects of the legislations. Data Protection Act The Data Protection Act reads that data discovered by one person to another person may only be used for the certain reason for which they were discovered. Information may only be kept for an appropriate length of time and must not be shown to other people without the permission of the data owner. Schools, for example, may keep information on former pupils for no longer than ten years. How It Affects Me As I am reaching the last months of my high school career I have accumulated a large amount of data in my personal records, which is kept in the schools database. I have accumulated both medical, social behaviour, and certificates of achievements. The data protection act insures that after a certain period of time the school will no longer hold this information. This is good especially on the matter of my social behaviour record, as some employers will not employ someone with a bad record in school.