Healthcare data breaches are the most common – which is unfortunate because of the sensitivity of the information that can often be leaked or hacked.<\/p>\n
The NHS has a wealth of information about us. Due to how much information they have on us, data breaches by the NHS can be a major concern. One of the most frustrating things about NHS data leaks is that we are required to share so much of our personal information with them. <\/p>\n
Unlike businesses, we arguably have more of an option to how much information we choose to share with them,\u00a0when it comes to sharing information with the NHS, it’s more out of necessity – we share some of our most personal information with the healthcare industry.<\/p>\n
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) did a report on data security, and their findings highlighted just how frequent healthcare industry data breaches takes place.
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Between January and March 2015\/2016, healthcare services had 184 data breaches<\/strong> – that’s 141 more breaches than the second highest, which was the local government who had 43. There was a difference of 167 incidents between land and property services who had the lowest data breaches of 17.<\/p>\n The number of data breaches in that year for the healthcare sector peaked at nearly 300 data breaches between July and September before it started to decline to just under 180 from January to March 2016.<\/p>\n The report found that the healthcare sector continues to account for the most data security breaches. This could be due to the NHS making it mandatory to report incidents, or it could be down to the size of the healthcare sector and the sensitivity of the data processed, or perhaps funding problems.<\/p>\n From the data collected, the most common ways in which security data breaches took place were from data posted or faxed to the incorrect recipient (41) and the loss or theft of paperwork (36).<\/p>\n Other ways data was lost was through:<\/p>\nSecurity incident types<\/h3>\n