A timely reminder that local government around the world often has access to significant amounts of personal data. Just hope that you don't live either in Plymouth or North Yorkshire. Recent reporting suggests these guys are mastering the art of losing personal data.
COMPUTER security has come under scrutiny at North Yorkshire County Council following the theft or loss of seven laptops in the past 12 months.
Council bosses said five of the devices were fully encrypted, while the other two contained no sensitive or personal data.
Of top of this a couple of Blackberries - issued to senior management - have gone astray, as have an unknown number of USB keys - unknown because the bosses don't know how many they had to start with.
HIGHLY sensitive child protection papers are among scores of documents and computer records lost by Westcountry officials in the past three years. The child protection case minutes – from meetings between social services, healthcare providers and the police – were lost by Devon Primary Care Trust in December last year.
This admission is amongst a bunch unearthed by a local newspaper using Freedom of Information requests. Documents sent in the mail never arrived. Documents sent in the mail were delivered to a document destruction firm instead of their rightful destination. And personal data was stolen:
In May 2007, an inadequately protected laptop computer was stolen from NHS premises in Truro. It contained data of employees of the Royal Cornwall Hospital, Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Primary Care Trust, and Cornwall Partnership Trust. In all, the records of 10,000 staff were exposed including their names, addresses, National Insurance numbers and bank details.
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