Looking Back: Islington Council resident data breach October 2015

Last year, Islington Council accidentally published residents personal details on their public website.

This lead to Town hall bosses having to apologise yet again over another data breach on the back of three previous ones in recent years that cost the taxpayer £100,000.

The council received a phone call from a resident who had discovered the data breach after going online to pay a penalty charge only to notice copies of the residents information had been uploaded onto the council website.

What exactly did the Council publish on their website?

The resident was able to access about a year’s worth of information of other people who had paid penalty charge notices. Terry Stacey, former council leader, said that: “hundreds if not thousands” of letters, documents and cheques had been left in an unencrypted folder that was found by the man trying to pay his fine.

The information also included copies of cheques with people’s bank details on as well as medical information from people who had appealed fines. One person’s prison records were also included on there. People’s home addresses and telephone numbers were also available.

Not the first breach for Islington Council

Islington Council has released a statement saying:

As previously said, this isn’t the first time Islington Council have been guilty of a data breach. In 2012, details of 51 Andover Estate residents’ personal details were accidentally passed over to gang members whom the residents had been complaining about for antisocial behaviour.

Thousands of pounds were paid out in order to re-home the residents.

Only a month later, more than 2,000 people had their sensitive data released on the What Do They Know? website after a Freedom of Information request.  In 2013, the council suffered a further data breach where it disclosed the email addresses of a further 150 people.

Who to contact if a victim of data breach

Here at the Data Leak Lawyers, we are at the heart of many data breaches cases, especially those involving the public sector. We are currently working on data breaches like the 56 Dean Street incident and are still taking on Clients who have been affected by the breach. Then we have the recent case where an out-of-hours nurse had her bag stolen from her vehicle which contained highly sensitive patient’s personal information.

If you’ve been affected by a data breach then we can help. We urge you to contact us if you have been affected. If we think you have a claim we can help get you the compensation that you deserve.

Source: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/islington-council-releases-residents-medical-details-and-prison-records-in-data-leak-gaffe-a3101266.html

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