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Over £1m in penalties now handed out by Information Commissioner's Office
A further two councils have been fined by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for failing to keep data secure.
Croydon Council was fined £100,000 after a bag containing papers relating to the care of a child sex abuse victim was stolen from a London pub.
An £80,000 fine was given to Norfolk County Council for disclosing information about allegations against a parent and the welfare of their child to the wrong recipient.
Stephen Eckersley, ICO head of enforcement, said: "We appreciate that people working in roles where they handle sensitive information will – like all of us – sometimes have their bags stolen.
"However, this highly personal information needn't have been compromised at all if Croydon Council had appropriate security measures in place.
"One of the most basic rules when disclosing highly sensitive information is to check and then double-check that it is going to the right recipient. Norfolk County Council failed to have a system for this and also did not monitor whether staff had completed data-protection training."
Both breaches occurred in April last year, according to the ICO which said the councils in question has taken remedial action. But Eckersley commented that "this does not excuse the fact that vulnerable children and their families should never have been put in this situation."
These latest penalties bring the total amount served by the ICO to organisations found in serious breach of the Data Protection Act to over £1m.
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Human error and data protection
It's telling that the ICO should have to point out that individuals should "check and then double check" that sensitive information is being sent to the right person. It's a fundamental problem that people aren't being provided with tools that help avoid simple human errors. When handling sensitive data, surely some simple functions are essential: - workflow that ensures that a second person checks what is being sent and to who - two-factor authentication - reliable revocation so misdirected files can be protected We've been discussing this over on our blog and have published a checklist to help identify the key elements that will help a href="http://www.iseeuglobal.com/information-governance-strategy-secure-data-transfer/" enforce data protection /a .
Posted by ISEEU Global, 16 Feb 2012