By Nick Heath, 24 June 2008 16:22
NEWS
Whitehall has suffered a further 30 data breaches since it lost 25 million people's details last November.
There have been 30 data losses in central government, 50 in public sector organisations and 17 in local government, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) confirmed.
The figures were revealed by justice minister Michael Wills in a written answer to Parliament in response to a question by shadow minister for the cabinet office Francis Maude.
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Wills told Parliament: "The Commissioner encourages organisations to report serious data breaches to his office, although there is no legal obligation on them to do so.
"Because of the subjective criteria used by organisations when deciding whether to notify, the severity and impact of the breaches vary."
Reported public losses outstrip the private sector, where 41 incidents have been recorded since November last year.
The issue of public data loss became a bigger issue with the HMRC's loss of 25 million people's details on two CDs, which sparked a host of revelations about missing data in government and business.
Comments
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1. anonymous
As with all things NuLabour...
In this country we don't need new laws, just adequete enforcement of existing laws.....
Endemic or serious data protection violations should be prosecuted and the companies or organisations involved should he heavily fined.
Not a piddling £250,000 but say a punative 10% of annual revenue - That would grab their attention and ensure compliance.
2. Karen Challinor
but the NIR/ID car scheme will be different of course
it will be unique among all government IT projects in that it won't use a colander as a security model
our data will be perfectly safe and secure and won't appear in any third party's possession unless they pay the government for
...only if we stop using "embarrassment" as a punishment for politicians and civil servants who are in charge of this data and start using jail sentences instead
3. Riadical Meldrew
At least they are still owning up to all of their security shortcomings. This would all be changed if their public profile sinks to an all time low...."What you don't know about is less to for you to worry about" would probably be their excuse! Aw gee thanks Minister.