A recent Charnwood council data breach incident has been reported to the UK’s data watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
The victims of the data breach have also been informed as to what has happened, and the local authority has apologised for the breach.
This is another case of private information being accidentally uploaded online. We represent a large number of people who are claiming for council data breach compensation because of how often incidents can happen, and accidental leaks are unfortunately common. This latest incident doesn’t come as a surprise to us, but it ought to have been prevented in the first place.
About the Charnwood council data breach
The Charnwood council data breach is believed to affect 134 people who have been informed that their data has been accidentally leaked online.
It’s understood that the victims had taken part in a survey about the levels of council tax in place, and information about the survey was published online. However, the personal information of residents taking part in the survey could also be accessed.
Information leaked in the incident included
Data that has been leaked in the incident includes:
- Names;
- Addresses;
- Email addresses;
- Telephone numbers.
This kind of data should have been completely removed and should not have been accessible online at all.
What is being done about the Charnwood council data breach?
The Charnwood council data breach has been duly reported to the ICO, and an apology email has been issued to victims of the incident.
A spokesperson for the council has said:
“We would clearly like to apologise to the people affected by this incident and we would like to reassure residents that we have reviewed our processes to ensure this does not happen again.”
As we often say, there should have been processes in place to have prevented this leak before it even happened. This appears to be another case where policy and procedure is only going to be reviewed and tightened after a data breach has already occurred.
For the victims, that’s too late.
Council data breach compensation claims increasingly common
We can tell you from years of experience that council data breach compensation claims are increasingly common.
In fact, they are one of the most common types of individual cases we take forward for people.
When you consider that councils and local authority agencies hold so much personal and sensitive data about thousands and thousands of people, you would expect their policies and procedures to prevent leaks, breaches and hacks to be excellent. However, given the levels of breaches we see, it doesn’t look like that’s the case at all.