The mid-winter flurry of data privacy breaches has once more highlighted the precarious nature of electronic records and undermined public confidence in the Government’s ability to secure our confidential details held by public bodies. In total, the personal details of more than 29 million people have been lost by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, nine NHS Trusts, the Ministry of Defence, and HM Revenue & Customs. The UK Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, has said that privacy breaches are just as bad in the private sector, stating that he has received numerous anonymous confessions of high-profile privacy breaches from companies.
In a highly regulated economy, where most large organisations have some form of data use policy, why are managers and floor staff not complying with policy? The evidence suggests that acceptable use policies (AUPs) have not been very effective in guiding employee use of data, the internet and email. As a result, employees are inadvertently creating a toxic mix of tort, employment, contract and criminal liability for their firms.
