Although public sector data losses might get the most press coverage, the problem undoubtedly affects the private sector too; we just don’t always get to hear about their mishaps. Nevertheless, the UK Government appears to be highly susceptible to losing sensitive data and, with each freshly reported loss, public confidence drops another notch or two.
A lost memory stick was found in a pub car-park over the weekend. The USB device contained private access codes for the UK Government gateway, a key portal for public services; so yet another case of poor Information Governance has come to light. They are coming so thick and fast now that the BBC has put together a list of the most recent incidents of government data leakage. Action needs to be taken urgently, to break the downward spiral of data loss, apology and diminishing public confidence.
Luckily the latest lost [but found] device was encrypted so at least it would have deterred the casual finder from exploiting the data. That’s not to say it couldn’t have been used by a determined and capable finder.
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