The ICO has issued a formal reprimand to the Home Office, after sensitive documents were found at a public London venue. The documents included two Extremism Analysis Unit Home Office reports and a Counter Terrorism Policing report. The reports evidently contained personal data, including that of Metropolitan Police staff.
You can read the full ICO statement at https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs/2022/10/home-office-warned-after-sensitive-documents-left-at-london-venue/ but surely that could never happen to us … or could it?
A recent conversation with a charity revealed that it can and, whilst not as potentially serious as this event, they are all personal data breaches. Whilst we still rely on paper (and that’s another topic), there are always risks of leaving documents in insecure locations, so part of your data protection plans must be to identify where this can occur, and plan for how to prevent a data breach. This is where your RoPA/Information Audit can help, and our Data Protection review can help to check your policies and procedures in this and many other areas.
If you would like to know more, or talk about a particular issue of concern, you are welcome to get in touch in any of the normal ways, use https://zorva.info/about-us/contact-us/ or by booking a 20-minute insight call at https://zorva.info/free-insight-call/ (for TinoPai members, but it’s free to join, and you get lots of other benefits including free live and on-demand webinars).