Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Act 2024

20 Processing of information

(1) The Scottish Ministers may by regulations make provision about the processing of information for and in connection with—

(a) the provision of—

(i) support under this Act, or

(ii) other relevant assistance,

(b) the carrying out of functions in relation to continuing professional development activities under this Act.

(2) Regulations under this section may, in particular—

(a) require a person to produce information in such form and within such reasonable times as may be specified,

(b) authorise the Scottish Ministers (and any persons acting on their behalf) to share information with—

(i) a public authority for the purpose of enabling or assisting the authority (and any persons acting on their behalf) to exercise any functions,

(ii) such other persons or descriptions of persons, in such circumstances as may be specified.

(3) A duty or power to disclose or use information which is imposed or conferred by regulations under subsection (1) may not operate to require or authorise the disclosure or use of information which would contravene the data protection legislation (but the duty or power is to be taken into account in determining whether the disclosure or use would contravene that legislation).

(4) In this section—

• “the data protection legislation” has the meaning given by section 3(9) of the Data Protection Act 2018,

• “processing” is to be construed in accordance with section 3(4) of the Data Protection Act 2018,

• “public authority” means a public authority in any part of the United Kingdom,

• “relevant assistance” means financial assistance provided by the Scottish Ministers under or by virtue of another enactment (including, in particular, assimilated law governing the CAP direct payment schemes and assimilated direct CAP legislation) for a purpose similar to a purpose described in schedule 1,

• “specified” means specified in, or determined under, regulations under subsection (1).

(5) Regulations under this section are subject to the negative procedure.