28 Feb 2008
When HM Revenue and Customs "lost" 25 million child benefit records in the post, did you think, "that could have been me"?
Data protection has always been a critical consideration, but the government's recent travails has raised its profile even more and made it increasingly a boardroom issue.
How has your data protection regime changed following the government scandals?
What questions would you like to ask of your peers and our experts to help deliver a successful strategy for your organisation?
As part of Computing's Managing Risk programme, post your comments below and join in the data protection debate.
I think there is also a need to educate system users who quite often are not from an IT background and may not be familiar with some aspects of data protection, or perhaps how seemingly innocent requests can pose a danger.
I was once asked to post on a press release a digital photo of some young school children proudly holding some certificates they had earned, what the person making the request had failed to realise was firstly that the associated article identified the school, secondly the photo clearly showed the children's faces and that it was possible with the correct software to zoom in to the certificates and in several cases make out the child's name from the certificate and finally this information would be available to anyone good and bad.
Needless to say that photo was not published, and local schools were advised to get a parental release form signed.
Posted by: Naj 08 May 2008
There are clearly various elements that need to be considered when you think about your data security. First, it's the protection in place whilst you are using your systems 'live'. Here you would obviously put in place things like firewalls, giving staff dummy ternminals and preventing downloads via USBs to mention just a few. However, another aspect that many people don't really understand is how to deal with data destruction once you want to replace data storage systems - be these hard drives, servers etc. Sometimes businesses, particularly small businesses, don't realise how valuable their data can be to a third party. SMEs are more focused on the cost of correct disposal (or incorrect in many cases) of equipment rather than with data security, this usually being a secondary consideration. SMEs need to wake up to data security and just how important it is to use a credible organisation that can provide them with this kind of service. If you don't worry about data security at work, you are less likely to worry about it at home. We have placed an e-zine on the home page of our website (www.eolitservices.co.uk) that will help businesses and individuals consider various factors in the correct method of data destruction for them.
Posted by: Richard Parker 03 Apr 2008
We never allow data to leave our premises. All applications run via Citrix so no matter where users access their data, it never gets anywhere near the hard drive, CD burner or USB ports on their PC or terminal. Remote users who either use a home PC or a laptop also access via a VPN and Citrix (with other security measures) so a stolen laptop or home PC is a nuisance rather than a serious problem. We're only a medium size firm with 160 staff and luckily the Partners agreed that security of client data was worth the expense.
Posted by: David Bradbury 17 Mar 2008
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