Inquiry call over Devon's lost data

AN urgent investigation has been demanded after the Echo discovered that personal information relating to children, including their addresses and pictures, as well as confidential data about schools and teachers, had been lost by Devon County Council.

The information was on computer equipment stolen from Devon County Council workers in the past three years.

Members of the council's children and young people's scrutiny committee want the matter to be raised as a matter of urgency at next week's council executive meeting.

"This is a reflection of how seriously we are taking this," said the scrutiny chairman Christine Channon.

"We want to know what protections are in place and if this could happen again.

"Children's records have got to be secure."

The local authority has reported 15 instances of computer theft since 2005, revealed in a Freedom of Information request lodged by the Echo.

In some cases the computers were known to contain confidential information on schoolchildren and council employees.

Data lost in the thefts includes:

Two cleaners were caught in the act of attempting to take equipment and another was dismissed following two of the thefts. But data lost in the majority of the thefts has never been recovered.

And the council is not certain about what was contained on many of the computers.

Devon councillor Des Hannon, responsible for IT, has defended the council's security safety record and has said there were strict guidelines in place.

"We must remember these are cases of crime and were investigated by police," he told the Echo.

"Given the size of our organisation, this is an extremely low level of loss compared to many private organisations, but that doesn't mean we are complacent."

Cllr Hannon said new security measures, such as more complex passwords, had recently been introduced.

He said super-sensitive information was always saved on the council's main server and would not be accessible to criminals.

Chris Dimmelow, Devon County Council's child protection manager, who was at the meeting to talk about another matter, tried to reassure the councillors, saying there were procedures in place for safeguarding data.

But he said he had not been aware of the details of the lost information.

"We are subject to statutory requirements for data records," said Mr Dimmelow.

Devon County Unison secretary Roger Spackman said he was "concerned" to hear of the thefts and said it was something the union would now be monitoring.

"We were not made aware that the personal data of staff had gone missing and we would have expected the county council to raise this issue with us," he said. Mr Spackman also said he was surprised staff were not storing all information on the council's main server, where it could not be accessed without the security clearance.

He said he would be anxious to know if the staff whose details had been lost had been made aware of the matter.

The council has still not said how many of the thefts they have reported to the Information Commissioner.

Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw said: "I think it's very important all public bodies and organisations take their responsibilities to protect data very seriously.

"That includes being open about breaches of the Data Protection Act following guidance including informing the Information Commissioner's office and putting in place measures to ensure secure data doesn't fall into the wrong hands."