UK Information Commissioners office fines Nottinghamshire Council 70,000 pounds for leaving vulnerable peoples personal information on line for 5 years

September 5, 2017 |

The UK Information Commissioner’s Office has again taken action for breaches of data security. This time it issued a monetary penalty notice, of £70,000, against the Nottinghamshire Council for exposing the personal information of vulnerable people for 5 years.  While the legislative structures are different the assertive approach by the ICO compares favourably to the lethargic and timid approach taken by the Australian Privacy Commissioner.

The nub of the problem was that Nottinghamshire County Council had set up a portal to allow social care providers to confirm that they had capacity to support a vulnerable person.  The architecture of the portal was flawed.  A member of the public discovered that a search engine was able to access and view data which included a person’s gender, address, post code and personal care needs.  Very sensitive.

The ICO media release provides:

A council has been fined £70,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for leaving vulnerable people’s personal information exposed online for five years.

The Data Protection Act requires organisations to take appropriate measures to keep personal data secure, especially when dealing with sensitive information. But Nottinghamshire County Council posted the gender, addresses, postcodes and care requirements of elderly and disabled people in an online directory which didn’t have basic security or access restrictions such as a username or password.

The matter was only discovered when a member of the public using a search engine was inadvertently able to access and view the data with no need to log in, and was concerned that it could be used by criminals to target vulnerable people or their homes – especially as it even revealed whether or not they were still in hospital.

ICO Head of Enforcement Steve Eckersley said:

“This was a serious and prolonged breach of the law. For no good reason, the council overlooked the need to put robust measures in place to protect people’s personal information, despite having the financial and staffing resources available.

“Given the sensitive nature of the personal data and the vulnerability of the people involved, this was totally unacceptable and inexcusable. Organisations need to understand that they have to treat the security of data as seriously as they take the security of their premises or their finances.”

The council had launched its ‘Home Care Allocation System’ (HCAS), an online portal allowing social care providers to confirm that they had capacity to support a particular service user, in July 2011. When the breach was reported in June 2016, the HCAS system contained a directory of 81 service users. It is understood the data of 3,000 people had been posted in the five years the system was online.

The data exposed included people’s gender, addresses and post codes, personal care needs and requirements such as the number of home visits per day, and whether they had been or were still in hospital. Although the service user’s names were not included, a determined person would be able to identify them. The council offered no mitigation to the ICO.

The Monetary Penalty Notice is found here.

As is often the case the media was extensive and negative with reports by the East Midland Business Link, the Register, the Nottingham Post and the BBC.

 

 

 

 

One Response to “UK Information Commissioners office fines Nottinghamshire Council 70,000 pounds for leaving vulnerable peoples personal information on line for 5 years”

  1. UK Information Commissioners office fines Nottinghamshire Council 70,000 pounds for leaving vulnerable peoples personal information on line for 5 years | Australian Law Blogs

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