Constructive email correspondence between Shell and the Donovan’s

SELF-EXPLANATORY EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE WITH RICHARD WISEMAN, CHIEF ETHICS & COMPLIANCE OFFICER ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC THAT CONCLUDED TODAY.

SOME MORE OR LESS DUPLICATED EMAILS FROM ALFRED AND JOHN TO MR WISEMAN HAVE BEEN OMITTED.

SHELL IS AWARE THAT ANY EMAILS TO US MARKED “NOT FOR PUBLICATION”, WOULD BE TREATED ACCORDINGLY.

EMAIL FROM RICHARD WISEMAN TO ALFRED DONOVAN

From:     [email protected]
Subject:     Data Protection Act Application
Date:     26 February 2010 09:24:21 GMT
To:     [email protected]

Dear Mr Donovan

I hope you are well.

We have now had an opportunity to consider your recent subject access request to Shell. As you are probably aware, in recent years there has been very little direct communication between Shell and yourself. Rather, correspondence has mainly been between Shell and your son, John. Consequently, Shell holds only a small amount of personal data that relates solely to you. In fact, in relation to the parts of your subject access request which differ from John’s 2009 subject access request, any relevant data that Shell holds on these subjects is overwhelmingly John’s personal data rather than yours.

As you know, the Data Protection Act treats you and John as separate individuals, with each of you having separate rights under the Act. However, as you will appreciate, given your and John’s working relationship and our understanding that you both jointly operate the RoyalDutchShell plc website, it is often difficult to separate out data that relates purely to one or other of you.

Therefore, in order to comply fully with our obligations to both you and John under the Data Protection Act with regard to your recent subject access request we would propose the following:

1.     We will send to you copies of documents solely containing your personal data and which were not disclosed to John as part of his previous subject access requests given that they did not also constitute John’s personal data.

2.     Some of the documentation that we have previously disclosed to John (as part of his previous subject access requests) may in some cases also constitute your personal data. As such, it would seem sensible to agree with you and John that this documentation also forms part of Shell’s response to your recent subject access request. Please let us know if you agree to this. We will ask John separately for his agreement to the disclosure of this information to you. Whilst we would then obviously be happy to send to you a further copy of this documentation if you would like us to, in the interests of saving paper we would prefer not to resend it.

3.     We will also ask John for his consent and, conditional on his giving it,  send you copies of documents generated from 4 September 2009 (the cut-off date of John’s last subject access request) until the date that your subject access request was received (i.e.  26 January 2010) and which contain personal data relating to you and/or John. This would go beyond our obligations to you under the Data Protection Act, but would have the advantage of giving you and John immediate access to these documents and of avoiding wasteful repetition of work at a future date.

In the future, conditional on John’s and your consent, we would also propose treating subject access requests from either one of you as if you were making a joint request, for the same reasons. Please let us know whether you agree to this.

As with previous subject access requests, the exemptions and other restrictions under the Data Protection Act, which limit the information that we are required to communicate to you, will continue to apply.

We should be grateful if you would respond to this email by close of business on Monday 1 March 2010 so that we can meet our deadline of 7 March 2010 for getting back to you in relation to your subject access request.

Regards
Richard Wiseman

Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer
Royal Dutch Shell plc
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA

Registered in England and Wales number 4366849
Registered Office:  Shell Centre, London, SE1
Headquarters: Carel van Bylandtlaan 30, 2596 HR
The Hague, The Netherlands

REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN

Subject:     Re: Data Protection Act – Your Father’s Application
From:     [email protected]
Date:     26 February 2010 14:21:44 GMT
To:     [email protected]
Cc:     [email protected]

Dear Mr Wiseman

I confirm my consent for Shell to disclose to my father, Alfred Donovan, the information you have identified in your email below, sent at 09.18 today.

In principle I have no problem agreeing to your request to treat our SAR applications as being joint, rather than separate, provided we can agree with you what Shell considers to be a reasonable interval for us making such applications, bearing in mind that we would obviously lose the option to stagger/alternate our applications. This should not be a problem dependent on your answer.

While we are all in a constructive mood, can you please confirm that Shell has been searching for relevant information not only in regard to our surname, but also related abbreviations i.e. Mr D?

Once we have your response, we will both reply within the indicated deadline.

Regards
John

REPLY TO RICHARD WISEMAN FROM ALFRED DONOVAN

Subject:     Re: Data Protection Act Application
From:     [email protected]
Date:     26 February 2010 21:21:18 GMT
To:     [email protected]
Cc:     [email protected]

Dear Mr Wiseman

With regards to my health, The Sunday Times had it about right: “frail but still lucid” (I hope). Thank you for asking. I noted from an internal email Shell’s understandable interest in my antiquity.

Turning to the matters at hand, I am flattered that a Shell official of your eminence is dealing with the issues arising from my SAR application.

I note the content of your email and reply as follows: –

1. Accepted.
2. Accepted. There is no need to supply to me information you have already supplied to John.
3. Accepted.

Please feel free to treat future SAR applications from John and me as being jointly made, provided you are willing to entertain such applications on an annual basis. That seems a reasonable interval and covers the point made by John in his email to you earlier today i.e. voluntarily giving up the option to make separate SAR applications.

I trust that the search for relevant information covered by the SAR includes any documents/communications containing abbreviations of our names. Please let me know If this assumption is wrong.

This seems a sensible way forward to minimise the burden on Shell of dealing with our SAR applications.

Regards
Alfred Donovan

REPLY FROM RICHARD WISEMAN TO JOHN DONOVAN

From:     [email protected]
Subject:     RE: Data Protection Act – Your Father’s Application
Date:     27 February 2010 09:37:58 GMT
To:     [email protected]
Cc:     [email protected]

Dear Mr Donovan

I will ask the team what they consider to be a reasonable interval, bearing in mind their resources and other requests they have to deal with.  Meanwhile, I can confirm that we do not restrict our searches to your surname.

Richard Wiseman

Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer
Royal Dutch Shell plc
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA

REPLY FROM RICHARD WISEMAN TO ALFRED DONOVAN

From:     [email protected]
Subject:     RE: Data Protection Act Application
Date:     27 February 2010 09:55:02 GMT
To:     [email protected]
Cc:     [email protected]

Dear Mr Donovan

Thank you for your reply.

I can assure you that we take our responsibilities seriously and we do not limit our search to your surname.

I did read the article and had no doubts about your lucidity!

Regards
Richard Wiseman

Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer
Royal Dutch Shell plc
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA

EMAIL FROM RICHARD WISEMAN

From:     [email protected]
Subject:     RE: Data Protection Act – Your Father’s Application
Date:     1 March 2010 10:56:06 GMT
To:     [email protected]
Cc:     [email protected]

Dear Mr Donovan

I have now heard from the person dealing with your request.  They suggest that annual requests would be reasonable.  Please let me know if this would be satisfactory.

Regards
Richard Wiseman

Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer
Royal Dutch Shell plc
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA

REPLY FROM ALFRED DONOVAN

Subject:     Re: Data Protection Act – Your Father’s Application
From:     [email protected]
Date:     1 March 2010 14:56:29 GMT
To:     [email protected]

Dear Mr Wiseman

I confirm as per John’s email to you today that in future he and I will make joint SAR applications on an annual basis (speaking optimistically on my part).

Shows what can be achieved with both sides acting constructively and on the basis of being reasonable.

Kind regards
Alfred Donovan

CONCLUDING EMAIL FROM RICHARD WISEMAN

From:     [email protected]
Subject:     RE: Data Protection Act – Your Father’s Application
Date:     1 March 2010 15:05:24 GMT
To:     [email protected]
Cc:     [email protected]

Many thanks.

Regards
Richard Wiseman

Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer
Royal Dutch Shell plc
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.