Lib Dems publish dossier of data loss
June 2, 2009 9:09 AM
Originally published by Scottish Liberal Democrats
Originally published by Scottish Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats have published a dossier of data loss, which shows that councils and health boards across the country are failing to keep personal information safe, even after the Finance Secretary promised radical action across the whole public sector to improve data security.
The Liberal Democrats can reveal that secret crime reports and entire servers from schools have been stolen, children's pictures have gone missing, clinical studies have been misplaced and videos of patients have gone astray.
The dossier shows that councils and health boards are failing to keep USB sticks, laptops, computers and blackberries secure.
Commenting, Jeremy Purvis, Liberal Democrat Finance spokesperson said:
"Today we reveal a catalogue of failures from health boards and councils to keep our personal data safe.
"Confidential patient information, top secret crime reports and photographs of school children have been lost by councils and health boards. They are failing to keep our sensitive personal information safe.
"These security failures all happened after promises by the Scottish Government that data security would be improved.
"To avoid mounting public criticism after data loss at the Pensions Agency in October 2007, John Swinney ordered a review to tighten up data security. It recommended that the Scottish Government provide more leadership. It called for central guidance to be issued, rather than councils and health boards developing their own data protection procedures.
"Our investigation reveals the utter failing of the Scottish Government to provide any of this.
"I have written to the Finance Secretary urging him to take urgent steps to protect our data.
"Parents, patients and the public need to be reassured that the data held by the public sector in Scotland is held to the highest possible standards. Our investigation shows that at present, this is clearly not the case.
"New procedures must be put in place before more vulnerable people are put at risk."
Ends.
What would you like to do next?
-
Subscribe for updates
Follow the party's activity on...
- Twitter:
- Liberal Democrats
- Facebook:
- Liberal Democrats
- YouTube:
- Liberal Democrats