Evans has blatantly ignored requests from birders (including Ron Johns) to withdraw their information from the UK400 club website. So far Evans has only removed the name of Steve Webb from the top 50 UK life-list total from his website. The obvious reason why Evans will not delete any more birders’ names and list totals (particularly from the top 10) because it would show that he does not have the support of many top-listers and also makes any totals rankings meaningless. If more birders submit their complaints with the DPA then it is likely they will take Evans to court.

The letter below from the DPA shows how Evans is breaking the DP Act. The Information Commissioner has confirmed in writing that that a birder’s list total constitutes personal data under the Data Protection Act (DPA) 1998. The DPA also state that  estimated totals also constitute personal data.

Lee Evans does not have a legitimate reason to process any birder’s personal data (e.g. list totals/estimated totals) without the consent of the individual under the DPA including schedule 2 of the act. Also, many of the unauthorised totals are inaccurate, which also contravenes the DPA. The 1^st Data Protection Principle requires that personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully. In many cases, Evans has contravened the 1^st, 4^th and 6^th DP principles. The details of these principles are given below.

The full details on the DP principles, which are fairly lengthy. However here is a high level summary of these principles. The 1^st Principle requires that personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully. This includes Mr Evans requesting your consent before processing your data to be held in his database and on his website. The 4^th Principle requires that personal data be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date. The 6^th Principle requires that personal data shall be processed in accordance with the rights of data subjects under the Act. This includes you having visibility of what data is held on you, which means it is your right to request that Evans supply all information he holds on you. This would include the scoring system used to assess and grade your birding skills. Not only do you have the right to see all data held about you, but the 6^th Principle includes that any inaccuracies found in the data by you shall be corrected by Evans. All these rights are covered in sections 7, 8 and 14 of the Act.

Here is just one of DPA letters on Evans: