15 Apr 2008
Thirteen London councils have failed to protect personal information on citizens during the last year, according to a BBC survey.
The guilty respondents to a Freedom of Information request said that data has been either lost, stolen or "inadvertently disclosed."
Further reading
In two separate incidents four months apart, workers at Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council took information on vulnerable children into bars, where it was stolen.
And in October 2007, 375 student files were stolen from Havering Council.
Last July the Information commissioner explicitly stressed to UK executives the need for more stringent protection of customer data. Yet, a large number of UK public sector organisations are still being extremely careless when using sensitive customer information.
The public sector is already facing troubled times, with increasing concern over the ease at which child sex offenders can teach in schools or hide in internet chatrooms. Carelessly leaving information on vulnerable children in the pub - as happened twice last year at Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council - only exacerbates the public's concern. It's too easy to imagine how this information would be a goldmine in the wrong hands and immediately put to nefarious use.
Public sector bodies need to understand and address internal data infrastructures to prevent data from being misused carelessly. Furthermore they need to encourage an organisational culture that realises the vulnerability of customer information and understands the importance of protecting it.
There are already enough threats to customer data from the criminal community, without organisations adding to them through an array of careless activities.
Posted by: Jason Goodwin, Head of Solutions Strategy, SAS 21 Apr 2008
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