by johnt
23. November 2011 09:40
Personal data has been lost by 132 UK local councils since 2008, according to a report published by Big Brother Watch (BBW).
There were a total of 1,035 incidents of data loss between August 2008 and August 2011, with only 55 reported to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the report added. At least 35 councils admitted to losing private information about children. At least 244 laptops, 98 memory sticks and 93 mobile devices were lost.
Big Brother Watch, commenting on the losses, said this highlighted a "shockingly lax attitude" to protecting confidential information by some councils.
Why councils feel the need to physically carry around data in this day and age is mystifying.
Data Security is very important to us at Data8 and we have prepared a white paper that outlines the best practice in transferring data to us. Data Security White Paper. This guidance is here to show you our recommended secure methods to transfer data.
Any company that stores or processes personal data is subject to the Data Protection Act (DPA). Increasingly, the ICO is clamping down on breaches of the DPA and simply losing a laptop with unencrypted data on is now potentially enough to result in an expensive fine.
Here are some useful links:
- Filezilla - a free FTP solution supporting FTPS and SFTP.
- GnuPG - a free implementation of the OpenPGP standard.
- GPG4win - a free windows front end to support GnuPG.