Encrypt to stay safe

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has reminded organisations that sensitive personal information should be encrypted when it is stored or sent electronically. Stoke-on-Trent City Council was recently fined £120,000 for a data-protection breach after sensitive information about a child-protection legal case was emailed by a solicitor at the council to the wrong person.

Stephen Eckersley, head of enforcement at the ICO, says: “If this data had been encrypted then the information would have stayed secure. Instead, the authority has received a significant penalty for failing to adopt what is a simple and widely used security measure.”