Vetting agency suffers data breach

Friday, November 20, 2009

The Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) has admitted it suffered a data breach in the last year.

In its annual report and accounts for 2008/09, the ISA admitted an email containing confidential data was sent to the wrong address. It said a full investigation was carried out, but it concluded that it was purely down to human error. It added that the incident did not result in any risk to safeguarding.

In contrast to this admission, one part of the report has claimed a good level of data protection training for all its staff.

"All staff at induction are provided with training in relation to data protection, freedom of information and information security. The training has proven to raise awareness and embed security and information governance into the organisational culture. Feedback from training has been very positive. Internal Auditor reviews of this area have commented that the level of security awareness created by induction training, which is reinforced by physical and technical means as constant reminders, is impressive," the report said.