Although we appreciate the hard work of those who work in our councils and local government bodies, data breaches in the public sector remain a big problem. In order to do their jobs, these establishments often need access to a lot of our personal data such as contact details, medical records, criminal records, etc.<\/p>\n
We trust them with this information because, after all, they’re a part of the public establishment who are supposed to be there to look after our best interests. But there have been a large number of data breach cases<\/strong> that have left many worried about our data in their hands. In accordance with the Data Protection Act, all local authorities have a legal duty to take:<\/p>\n \n“…appropriate, technical and organisational measures against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data.”<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The issue is that local authorities and councils have been subject to a large number of data breaches in the past, and a lot have happened because of avoidable errors<\/strong>. <\/p>\n For instance, a London Council were fined by the ICO after a social worker left court files on top of her car and drove off. Mistakes happen when people are tired or unfocused, but for such important files, people need to take extra precautions to ensure mistakes can’t be so easily made.<\/p>\n In another example, lax rules and security led to one Aberdeen Council worker accidentally transferring and uploading personal information onto the internet when using her personal PC to work from home. <\/p>\n Now, you’d think they’d have security rules in place for government workers working from home, and if they do then employees are simply choosing to ignore them because breaches are happening! A lot of it, we suspect, is probably down to a lack of training for staff.<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\nLocal government breaches<\/h2>\n
Thousands of data breaches occurring<\/h3>\n