Kirklees Council has signed off on spending almost £1m to comply with new EU-wide data laws.
But while the money will be found the scenario was attacked as “farcical” as the authority struggles with cuts to crucial services.
Kirklees has no option but to find money to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Most of the money - £442,000 for actual costs - will come from the council’s reserves but it has to find an additional £300,000 to cover any potential costs.
Now it has agreed to stump up another £198,920 to cover costs such as setting up a central archive.
The spending was proposed by Clr Graham Turner, who said GDPR presented a challenge but that the creation of a central archive at Red Doles Lane was “a real asset that will ensure we do not fall foul of the new regulation in the future.”
It was seconded by deputy council leader David Sheard , who said he did so “reluctantly.”
And he attacked the need to spend the best part of a million pounds on an issue that he said had been caused by banks and big business.
“Does anybody really know what it’s for?” he asked. “We have created an absolute monster - or somebody has.
“It’s farcical. We have problems with social care and potholes and we have been told that we have to spend a million pounds fiddling around with bits of paper. It’s absolute nonsense.”
GDPR strengthens the rights people have under the existing 1998 Data Protection Act and brings in new ones. It has been described as the biggest overhaul of data privacy regulation in the history of the internet.
