Cheshire East Council has made improvements to the way it handles sensitive information, after being fined by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for a breach of the Data Protection Act.
The Council reported the breach to the ICO following an incident in May 2011, where an email containing sensitive personal information was sent to a wider audience than intended or anticipated. Officers reported the matter to the ICO as soon as they became aware.
An apology has now been issued to the person affected and Cheshire East Council has taken all the necessary steps to ensure that this does not happen again in this or any other case.
Cheshire East Council will now have to pay a £64,000 penalty for the breach following their investigation. This represents 80 per cent of the whole fine, which is significantly reduced to encourage early payment.
The ICO found that the Council did indeed have a responsibility to distribute the information to its partner agencies but that the correct procedures had not been followed.
Cabinet Member with responsibility for performance and capacity, Councillor David Brown said: “Data protection is an issue that the Council takes very seriously.
“This incident has prompted us to scrutinise our policies and procedures very carefully to make sure that this never happens again.
“Staff will be receiving extra training and support in this area and all staff are being urged to remain extremely vigilant with the way sensitive information is handled and distributed.”
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