News
Council fines are nothing more than a slap-in-the-face, say Simplexo
June 2013 by
Joe Public received a double ‘slap-to-the-face’ in light of the news that Glasgow City Council has been fined £150,000 for losing two unencrypted laptops, according to Simon Bain, CTO of Simplexo.
The fallout means not only the loss of 20,000 members of the public’s personal data, including over 6,000 individuals’ bank account details, but also the added insult of having to pick up the £150,000 fine.
Bain states that careless incidents such as this are incomprehensible, and ultimately, greater responsibility towards public data needs to be demonstrated by councils:
“The initial loss of the laptops demonstrated a complete lack of respect for the public and their personal information, and while the council was rightly reprimanded I can’t help but feel that the fine is simply a slap-in-the-face for the public, as they are the ones who will pick up the tab!
“It’s all well and good councils standing up and holding their hands up to say sorry but they are not the ones suffering. I’m sure that processes are being put in place to ensure this does not happen again but if truth be told how many chances do they need? The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) also identified that a further 74 unencrypted laptops had gone missing – this goes beyond unforgiveable and is in fact incredibly scary.
