Investigation reveals extent of knowledge loss within the public sector

There had been greater than 1,000 incidents of knowledge loss up to now three years within the public sector.

An investigation by Big Brother Watch found that there was 1,035 data-loss incidents across 132 local authorities since 2008. It also found that of these incidents, 35 included councils that lost details about children and people in care.

Also, not less than 244 laptops and portable computers were lost, while at least 98 memory sticks and more than 93 mobile devices went missing.

Of the 1,035 incidents, 55 were reported to the info Commissioner's Office, but only nine ended in a termination of employment.

Richard Turner, CEO of Clearswift, said: “Today's news highlighting yet more data breaches is concerning reading. In reality that during today's business environment, where an ever-increasing range of communication channels are in use, organisations must realise that during conjunction with security technology, their staff is usually a powerful tool in safeguarding information and information.

“For data security policies to be truly effective, staff have to understand what security parameters are in place, and more importantly, why they're there.”

Grant Shapps, minister for local government, said: “I welcome this research by Big Brother Watch. This reinforces the desire for steps to offer protection to the privacy of law-abiding local residents. Civil liberties are under threat from the abuse of town hall surveillance powers, municipal nosy parkers ransacking through household bins and city hall officials losing sensitive personal data on children in care.”

Terry Greer-King, UK managing director of Check Point, said the quantity of losses reflects the shortage of use of information encryption on laptops, USB sticks and other removable storage media among UK companies.

He said: “We've surveyed using data encryption in UK private and non-private sector organisations each year since 2007 and encryption deployments had been consistently under 50 per cent formerly. In 2011, only 52 per cent of respondents were using encryption to guard data on their laptops.

“What's more, 13 per cent reported a breach from lost or stolen laptops and one more seven per cent lost unencrypted USB sticks. With only 1/2 firms actively protecting their devices and knowledge, breaches will inevitably continue for a while yet.”

Tim Patrick-Smith, CTO of Getronics, said: “Unfortunately, i am not surprised by the result of the report. In the interim, councils are still playing catch-up in terms of having the best technology and processes in place given the large rise in consumerisation within IT.

“It is probably going we are able to continue to determine CIOs struggling to implement truly secure models because the more traditional approach to securing hardware devices remains to be relied upon. CIOs must ensure access to data is illegitimate by unauthorised employees within the event that the device is lost.

“Accidental or deliberate lack of data is probably going to continue until the main target of the CIO is turned from securing the hardware to securing the information. This would involve improvements in digital rights management to enable these technologies to be more easily deployed.”