A mechanism introduced under the Data Protection Act 1998 that gives individuals the right to access any of their personal data held by third parties on payment of a fee, provided the request satisfies certain requirements.

For further information on “subject access requests” under the Data Protection Act 1998, see Data subject access requests: toolkit (DPA 1998 version).

New data protection legislation came into effect on 25 May 2018, namely the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU)2016/679) (GDPR). For information on the right of access for data subjects under Article 15, GDPR, see Practice note, Data Subject Rights Under the GDPR.