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Privacy watchdog says size of the penalty reflects the seriousness of the breaches
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has fined Surrey County Council £120,000 for a serious breach of the Data Protection Act.
The privacy watchdog said the council had emailed sensitive personal information to the wrong recipients on three separate occasions.
Although the ICO sends out many data breach notifications, fines of this nature are reserved for the most serious offences.
Christopher Graham, UK Information Commissioner said, "This significant penalty fully reflects the seriousness of the case. The fact that sensitive personal information relating to the health and welfare of 241 vulnerable individuals was sent to the wrong people is shocking enough.
"But when you take into account the two similar breaches that followed, it is clear that Surrey County Council failed to fully address the risks of sending sensitive personal data by email until it was far too late."
The ICO said the first incident and "most significant of the three", took place on 17 May last year. A member of staff working for one of the council's Adult Social Care Teams emailed a file containing unencrypted sensitive personal information relating to 241 individuals' physical and mental health to the wrong group email address.
This included a large number of transportation companies, including taxi firms, coach and mini bus hire services. A second misdirected email sent on 22 June 2010 led to confidential personal data relating to a number of individuals being emailed to over 100 recipients of a council newsletter.
In a final incident, data sent by the council's Children Services department about an individual's health was sent to the wrong internal group email address on 21 January 2011.
Christopher Graham, UK Information Commissioner continued, "Any organisation handling sensitive information must have appropriate levels of security in place. Surrey County Council has paid the price for their failings and this case should act as a warning to others that lax data protection practices will not be tolerated."
Following the incidents the council has taken action to improve its policies on information security.
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the taxpayer pays for council mistakes again
so the council is fined £120,000. Big deal! Where does the money come from? The council tax payer.
Posted by Dave Roberts, 10 Jun 2011
Fine offenders, not the taxpayers
Dave has it in one - the people responsible didn't simply fail. They're over-salaried desk jockeys that didn't care before the fine and don't much care now. The fine will be passed on to the taxpayers. The idle incompetents at the top are fireproof and they know it. It's about time such fines were applied directly to the top half-dozen salaries in local authorities - we might see some real changes then.
Posted by John L, 16 Jun 2011
Who and where are the Bosses
The government keeps on about Councils being made more accountable but who is supposed to be wielding the stick when things go wrong? I have not yet seen anyone losing their job for all the so called council credit card misuse and fraud reported in recent press have you? Do you wonder who is signing off these credit card bills and where their morals are?
Posted by Robert T, 17 Jun 2011
roads
So thats where all the money goes paying fines, no wonder Surreys roads are in such a poor state.
Posted by Bob Jarvis, 20 Jun 2011