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28 February 2008 / Anya Proops
Issue: 7310 / Categories: Features , Public , Legal services , Data protection
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Lost property

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Data losses—now it’s getting personal, says Anya Proops

Over the past three months the government has admitted to: the loss of two CDs containing personal data, including banking details, relating to 25 million parents; the loss in the US of personal data relating to three million UK learner drivers; and, further, a laptop containing the personal data, including banking details, of some 600,000 individuals who had expressed an interest in joining the armed forces.

In December 2007, eight NHS trusts admitted to losing up to 168,000 patient records. Also in December 2007, Leeds Building Society admitted that it had lost the salary and banking details of 1,000 employees. In January 2008, Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, issued an enforcement notice against Marks & Spencer (M&S) after an unencrypted laptop containing information about the pension arrangements of around 26,000 M&S employees was stolen from a contractor.

 

PROTECTION CONCERNS

These staggering developments have not only seriously dented public confidence in the ability of public and private sector organisations

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

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Sponsored by
DWF—David Abbott & Claire Keat

DWF—David Abbott & Claire Keat

Senior appointments in insurance services and commercial services announced

Clyde & Co—Nick Roberts

Clyde & Co—Nick Roberts

Aviation disputes practice strengthened by London partner hire

Ellisons—Marion Knocker

Ellisons—Marion Knocker

Residential property lawyer promoted to partnership

NEWS
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NLJ this week: Renters’ Rights revolution begins—brace for tribunal chaos
he abolition of assured shorthold tenancies and section 21 evictions marks the beginning of a ‘brave new world’ for England’s rental sector, writes Daniel Bacon of Seddons GSC
NLJ this week: Civil procedure gets a spring overhaul
Stephen Gold’s latest Civil Way column rounds up a flurry of procedural and regulatory changes reshaping housing, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and personal injury litigation
NLJ this week: Why GP complaints are going nowhere
Patients are being systematically failed by an NHS complaints regime that is opaque, poorly enforced and often stacked against them, argues Charles Davey of The Barrister Group
NLJ this week: Prenups meet a jurisdictional brick wall
A wealthy Russian divorce battle has produced a sharp warning about trying to challenge foreign nuptial agreements in the wrong English court. Writing in NLJ this week, Vanessa Friend and Robert Jackson of Hodge Jones & Allen examine Timokhin v Timokhina, where the High Court enforced Russian judgments arising from a prenuptial agreement despite arguments based on the landmark Radmacher decision
NLJ this week: Has Rylands v Fletcher come back from the dead?
An obscure Victorian tort may be heading for an unexpected revival after a significant Privy Council ruling that could reshape liability for dangerous escapes, according to Richard Buckley, barrister and emeritus professor of law at the University of Reading
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