Is council data protection and cybersecurity quality a postcode lottery?

Experts have looked in to the differences between councils and local authority services and compared the quality of the cybersecurity and their data protection procedures and protocols. One worrying trend is the fact that there are some huge differences between different councils when it comes to practically all aspects of data security.

This issue means that, in reality, the quality of data protection and cybersecurity can be somewhat of a postcode lottery. There is no single or uniform approach, which is a really worrying aspect.

Different regional councils and local authority services sometimes have very different approaches to data protection and cybersecurity…

It literally is, in some cases, almost the opposite; but between these two spectrums of data protection and cybersecurity are varying layers as well. The upshot is that there’s simply no singular or uniform approach, so the risk for the data subjects – i.e. the people who the data belongs to – can be seen as a postcode lottery.

You may be far safer being a constituent of one council as opposed to another…

An intolerable situation

This really is an intolerable situation. Cyberhackers, for one, pray on human mistakes. Little to no training about how to recognise and deal with a potential cyberattack really does leave systems wide-open to being breached.

Given that councils and local authority agencies hold a lot of personal and sensitive information about a lot of people, it is data that can be very valuable to hackers, and simply must be properly protected.

What can you do if you become the victim of a data protection breach caused by your local council or a local authority agency?

Whether it is your council who has directly caused a leak or breach of your data, or where a local authority who the responsibility is outsourced to has caused it, you may have a claim for data breach compensation. All councils must adhere to important data protection legislation, so if your data is misused or mishandled, you have the right to claim.

Ultimately, it should not be a postcode lottery as to how safe your private and sensitive information is.

There is no excuse for complacency – if you fall victim to a data protection breach or a cyber-hack as a result of a council or local authority agency failing to adequately safeguard your data, please get in touch with us for help and advice.

Compensation claim launched against Lovense app over allegations of secretly collecting intimate usage data

Equifax data breach compensation success