Cheshire East Council has been ordered to pay a monetary penalty of £80,000 for failing to take appropriate measures to ensure the security and appropriateness of disclosure when emailing personal information, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said today.
The serious breach of the Data Protection Act occurred in May 2011 when a council employee was asked to contact the local voluntary sector co-ordinator to alert local voluntary workers to a police force's concerns about an individual who was working in the area.
Instead of sending an email via the council's secure system, the employee sent an email to the local voluntary sector co-ordinator via her personal email account. The employee said she did this because the co-ordinator did not have an appropriate email account and that using the secure email system would have prevented the information from being further disseminated.
The email, which contained the name and an alleged alias for the individual as well as information about the concerns the police had about him, was then forwarded by the co-ordinator to 100 intended recipients.
Because the email did not have any clear markings or advice on how it was to be treated, the recipients interpreted the wording of the message to mean that they too should forward the email to other voluntary workers. The email was therefore sent to 180 unintended recipients.
Stephen Eckersley, Head of Enforcement, said: "While we appreciate that it is vitally important for genuine concerns about individuals working in the voluntary sector to be circulated to relevant parties, a robust system must be put in place to ensure that information is appropriately managed and carefully disclosed. Cheshire East Council also failed to provide this particular employee with adequate data protection training. The highly sensitive nature of the information and the need to restrict its circulation should have been made clear to all recipients.
"I hope this case – along with the fact that we've handed out over one million pounds worth of penalties since our powers came into force – acts as a strong incentive for other councils to ensure that they have sufficient measures in place around protecting personal data."
Following the breach, the council attempted to recall the email to prevent further dissemination, 57% of the recipients confirmed that they had deleted the information.
Cheshire East Council has since made improvements to the way it handles sensitive information. An apology has now been issued to the person affected and Cheshire East Council has taken all the necessary steps to ensure that this does not happen again in this or any other case.
Cheshire East Council will now have to pay a £64,000 penalty for the breach following their investigation. This represents 80% of the whole fine, which is reduced to encourage early payment.
Cabinet Member with responsibility for performance and capacity, Councillor David Brown said: "Data protection is an issue that the Council takes very seriously. This incident has prompted us to scrutinise our policies and procedures very carefully to make sure that this never happens again.
"Staff will be receiving extra training and support in this area and all staff are being urged to remain extremely vigilant with the way sensitive information is handled and distributed."
