The Information Commissioner’s Office has fined Glasgow City Council £150,000 for the loss of two unencrypted laptops, one of which contained personal details of more than 20,000 people. The ICO discovered that a further 74 unencrypted laptops were missing, six of which were known to be stolen.
Glasgow City Council said it took immediate steps to ensure a similar breach did not happen again. The council had been issued with an enforcement notice three years ago after an unencrypted memory stick containing personal data was lost.
Asset Management Ireland/DiskShred continues to promote best practice in the management and disposal of end-of-life assets. Last week it invited Ken Macdonald to speak at its Data Protection seminar on this hot topic. Philip McMichael, Director of AMI/DiskShred, commented ‘Data loss and the associated negative PR can be avoided by implementing best practice security and asset disposal guidelines. This means having clear policies and procedures that staff follow on how to handle data bearing assets throughout their lifecycle including how to securely dispose of redundant assets.’
