Council accepts fine for revealing personal information in FOI response
- Date: 22 August 2013
- Author: Sian Williams
Islington Council has today accepted a £70,000 fine from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) after a mistake led to personal data being released.
In June 2012 the council responded to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request asking for information including the ethnicity and gender of people the council had rehoused. The response, in the form of Excel spreadsheet tables, included personal information concealed behind the summary tables. The council accepted that this information should not have been disclosed and apologised to residents affected by the data breach.
A council investigation concluded that there was a need for mandatory data awareness training for all staff, as well as specific training for those staff who handle sensitive data. This programme has been in place since November 2012 and is ongoing.
An Islington Council spokesman said: "We remain extremely sorry for the upset and worry this disclosure may have caused to some people. The council carried out a thorough investigation when this disclosure came to light, and we have since put in place more rigorous checks. The person who released the data did not have sufficient knowledge of spreadsheets to recognise the error or to put it right. All of our employees who are tasked with responding to FOI requests have now had additional training with an emphasis on how to prepare information for public release.
"We recognise it is our responsibility to protect people's personal data, and we failed. We're very sorry for that."
The council intends to pay the fine promptly to take advantage of an offered 20% discount, reducing the penalty to £56,000.
ends
I remember when Rutland County Council gave out my information to a member of the public in a FOI and I received a letter saying how sorry the council was, possibly I should have gone to the ICO.
So another of Rutland County Councils failings could have been properly recorded.
