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Leicester City Council accidentally send spreadsheet to taxi firms containing details of vulnerable adults and children

Leicester City Council accidentally sent an unsecured spreadsheet to 27 taxi firms that reportedly contained sensitive details of potentially thousands of vulnerable adults and children.

The error occurred as the local government authority were processing tenders for transport of people in care and people with special needs.

Although a recall email was sent, there is no telling just how far the data may have inadvertently spread.
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Gwent Police to be investigated over “hiding” data protection breach

Worryingly, the police occupy one of the top spots in terms of organisations at the centre of data breaches, data leaks and hacks. Victims whose data is compromised in a data protection breach deserve to be notified as soon as possible, but it’s not unheard of for an organisation to “hide” a data breach as opposed to facing up to it and dealing with it.

Reportedly, Gwent Police are to be investigated for doing just that.

News sources say that Gwent Police are being investigated for failing to inform hundreds of individuals that their data protection rights had been breached.
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NHS staff accessing neighbour’s medical records is NOT okay

There is a recent worrying trend of NHS staff being caught out snooping on people they know, or are related to, by abusing their powers to access their medical records.

Let’s be absolutely clear: it is NOT okay for any member of the NHS to access their neighbour’s medical records without good reason or due authorisation.

If you are informed that a member of the NHS staff has accessed your medical records in such a way, or if you discover it has happened, you may be entitled to claim for data protection breach compensation.
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Council data protection breaches are serious and highly sensitive

Data protection breaches committed by councils / local authorities – or the companies they outsource work to – can be unfortunately common. We advise and represent a large volume of people who have been the victim of a data breach caused by their local council, so we understand how bad they can be.

The serious council data protection breaches can cause a lot of problems for the victims, and given the nature of data that local authorities often hold – these type of breaches can be very sensitive indeed.
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Ex-soldier prosecuted for posting vulnerable adult’s sensitive data on Twitter

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has released the details of a prosecution and a police undertaking after private and sensitive information was intentionally leaked on social media platform Twitter.

William Godfrey from Kent had been in a relationship with a probation officer when he came into possession of a USB data stick containing sensitive data. He later tweeted some of the sensitive data on the USB device and threatened to release more data as well.

For their part, Surrey Police signed an undertaking to improve their data protection policies and procedures.
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Council worker fined after being caught sharing personal data on Snapchat

It’s not only NHS workers who are breaching data protection rules by accessing medical records when they shouldn’t be. There’s also a worrying trend of data being breached by the rogue actions of employees, and with data being so easily shared nowadays, we remain concerned.

With a huge amount of councils lacking proper mandatory data protection training, you could argue there are potentially thousands of employees out there who don’t know any better. This is not good enough, and these prosecutions should serve as stern warnings to both employers and employees about breaching data protection rights by illegally sharing data.
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Why we’re not surprised that the number of UK Equifax cyber-hack victims has grown again!

At first, Equifax indicated there were some 300,000 UK victims of the Equifax cyber-hack, which then grew to 400,000, and eventually almost 700,000.

Now, we know Equifax has sent out warning letters to more than 860,000 of their UK customers, and we expect our client numbers to grow as more people are potentially able to join our Equifax action and claim compensation.

That’s more than double the original estimation, but this kind of thing is not uncommon at all. In fact, it can be incredibly hard to know exactly how many people are affected by a cyber-hack initially, and in some cases, it can be hard to know the exact numbers at all.
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Councils and local government authorities still failing to report data protection breaches

New information from the Big Brother Watch privacy group suggests that local authorities are still failing to report data protection breaches. In May 2018, the new GDPR legislation will come into force and councils will have to abide by regulations that will make the reporting of many data protection breaches compulsory.

But, aside from the impact the new laws may have, we cannot avoid the underlying issue here. With estimations that UK councils have been hit by almost 100 million cyberattacks in the last five years, the fact of the matter is that sensitive data is vulnerable in their hands.
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Fury over huge data protection breach involving child sexual abuse case files

Hundreds of confidential files have been found abandoned in a former office that had recently been vacated by the organisation Change, Grow, Live (CGL).

The entirely avoidable data leak included highly-sensitive records and documents involving vulnerable adults and children; i.e. confidential data that should be completely secure and never left open to being accessed without appropriate authority.

According to reports, files had literally been left behind after CGL vacated the premises.
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When 246,000 U.S. Department of Homeland Security Employees’ details are found on a home computer, it’s time to question data security

The U.S. reported a discovery of 246,000 sensitive personal records belonging to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees on a home computer owned by an employee. The department and its employees have a vital mission to “secure the nation from the many threats” the U.S faces.

One can only wonder if they ever suspect their own colleague to be a major security threat to their personal lives…

This, let’s face it, is the kind of thing we do not want to hear about. Although this story hails from across the pond, we’ve had our own issues of a similar nature of course. The Heathrow USB stick incident springs to mind.
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