The need to ensure that personal data is secure, accurate and available is covered through several of the eight data protection principles. Planning for this is therefore essential.

Data security is a direct requirement, but equally, planning for unforseen events should also be embraced. This is essentially disaster recovery and crisis management planning.

This represents a topic in its own right. We have therefore identified some key portals and sites to assist in addressing the issue:

• Disaster Recovery World... covers disaster recovery planning from a generic standpoint, identifying several approaches and tools

• The Crisis Management and Disaster Recovery Group offer some theory and again a selection of tools to assist and make the job of plan creation easier

• Business Continuity Planning is another DRP portal but covers the topic from a more generic business continuity angle.