It doesn't seem like a month goes by at the moment where there isn't a news story of either a large corporation accidentally sending their clients details out to all and sundry, or a politician dumping sensitive documents in a public bin. This is very worrying as it means our personal data can easily get into the wrong hands, encouraging fraud.
In a recent month long study, in which the contents of London's commercial rubbish bins within certain areas were examined there were worrying findings, among the sensitive items found were:
The records of 70 vulnerable patients including their names, addresses and details of their treatment, which had been dumped by a leading private hospital. Top legal offices in London were found to have dumped documents including clients personal details and case information in black bin liners on the pavement outside. Outside a chemist's, the rubbish contained over 20 prescription labels, some of these included patients names, addresses, details of medication, doctors names, date of birth and future medication needs.It is worrying to think these items were found as part of a small study, how much more would be found if a larger study were carried out.
Another case that has been reported is where a document was found on the seat of a bus that contained sensitive data relating to criminals and victims of crime. All of the page's were marked 'restricted' and revealed the addresses of the most dangerous criminals being supervised by a county police force and the prison service. Also included within the document were the names, addresses and phone numbers of witnesses, victims and those who were thought to be at risk from the listed offenders.
Firstly you wonder why a document like this was allowed to leave a secure area, and how a person knowing it contained such sensitive data could accidentally mislay it.
By law all companies and organisations are required to protect private data, and should have policies in place to ensure that nothing like this can happen. The Data Protection Act also states that all companies should have the correct polices in place to ensure that all private data is properly destroyed and disposed of. So why isn't this happening, and why aren't there harsher punishments for those that do perpetrate these crimes. Maybe if the punishments were made more severe it would deter others from treating our details with so little respect.
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