Stolen RAF hard drives contain senior staff vetting data including drug use, debt and use of prostitutes!

Three hard-drives containing sensitive information went missing from RAF Innsworth last September. The loss of these drives was made public but it has only now become apparent the extent of the information on them.

The data included security vetting information on senior officers. This included (down to fine detail including names, dates, times and places) information regarding drug use, extra-marital affairs, debt, use of prostitutes and medical conditions.

Once again these disks were unencrypted. We say ENCRYPT ALL PORTABLE DATA NOW.

more here... and here...

Information Commissioner threatens NHS over thousands of lost medical records

The Independent have lead today with the ongoing pile of serious data breaches by the NHS (we have reported on several of these). 

The Information Commissioner has threatened fines and other sanctions against the guilty parties. 

We feel that fines will only take away from patient care and the only true deterrent for senior management is ultimately the possibility of a custodial sentence (a la Health and Safety legislation). Only then will we see Public Sector management take this problem seriously. There is a strong argument for a Disclosure Law which is an effective deterrent for the Private sector, but it will have no impact on which NHS trust you use as most NHS patients have to use whichever service falls in their geographic area.

If you run a public or private medical practice and need impartial advice on how to keep your patient data both accessible and secure contact FaberBrent.

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