Wakefield Council data protection incident revealed

The details of a Wakefield Council data protection incident have been revealed. The breach itself has been self-referred to regulators.

It’s understood that a document containing the details of a child’s name, address and birth date was circulated to persons who should not have been provided the information. We can only assume that there’s a specific reason as to why Wakefield Council had circulated the information for the child in question, and why their identity should be revealed.

Wakefield Council has referred the incident to the Information Commissioner’s Office. The breach took place in the post-GDPR era, meaning a big fine could be issued.

Wakefield Council data protection incident over child’s identity

The fact that the Wakefield Council data protection incident related to a child’s information being disclosed is concerning. Councils and local authorities hold a lot of personal and sensitive information about vulnerable members of society. They have an important duty to safeguard this information at all times. Inadvertent and accidental disclosure – which this case appears to be – are avoidable errors that should never be allowed to happen in the first place.

The news of the incident came not long after the children’s services at the Council were reportedly deemed as inadequate by Ofsted in July. This stemmed from a number of failures that were reportedly found.

Statement on the Wakefield Council data protection incident

In a statement released in relation to the Wakefield Council data protection incident, Gillian Connolly said: “The council takes its responsibility for information security very seriously”.

She went on to say: “We are looking into the issue to identify any lessons to be learned and any improvements which need to be made. We are taking all the necessary actions to help prevent this from happening again and will support the Information Commissioner’s investigations.”

The Wakefield Council data protection incident is one of many

In reality, the Wakefield Council data protection incident is one of many that have plagued the public sector on the whole for years.

A lot of the individual clients we represent for data protection compensation claims stem from council data protecting incidents. With the vast amount of data that councils and local authority agencies hold about us, any breach can have serious consequences for victims.

Always remember that you have rights to make a claim for data breach compensation if you’re affected by an incident of this nature. You can contact our team for further help and assistance now. It’s free, and no obligation.

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