Details on 200 children stolen
Wednesday 5th March 2008, 2:00PM GMT.
A laptop with confidential information about more than 200 children – including their names, addresses, dates of birth and treatment – has been stolen from a Shropshire medical centre.
The thief walked into Madeley Health Centre, Telford, while a speech and language therapist was running a clinic, unplugged her laptop from an adjoining room and walked off with it.
Health chiefs quickly deactivated the laptop to ensure it could not be used to access general NHS data.
But a memory stick plugged into the machine carried details on 238 children, giving their names, addresses, dates of birth and speech and language therapy treatment.
Telford & Wrekin Primary Care Trust has written to all the parents, as well as contacting them by phone, and is carrying out an internal investigation.
Fran Beck, the trust’s director of services for children and young people, apologises for the incident in her letter.
She says the trust takes the security of personal information extremely seriously and has made major security improvements in recent years to protect patient details.
“All our staff have been given strict instructions about all aspects of security … for example, not to leave laptops in cars,” she says.
“It is extremely unfortunate this equipment was stolen from an NHS clinic while the therapist was working there.”
Telford police spokeswoman Denise Wakefield said the theft of the Flybook laptop happened on February 27 at 4.50pm.
Anyone with information about the theft is asked to call police on 08457 444888.
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On a memory stick!
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I HOPE it was password protected.
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The thief won’t be interested in the data or the children. The laptop will go straight up his/her nose.
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“Health chiefs quickly deactivated the laptop to ensure it could not be used to access general NHS data.”
How – Some new technology that has not appeared in the tech world?
They may meen it cannot be connected back into the NHS system, but what other data is actually present on the laptop?
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In my comment responding to Linda Edmondson’s “We need to act on data” I did refer to bungling authorities but I did not expect such a rapid response. In essence nobody can be trusted with data nobody is accountable. Ms. Beck apologises and “All our staff …..she says”. Ms. Beck your apology is a fat lot of good and the effectivity of your briefings beggars belief. An apology is being accountable.
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Nobody in the public sector should be allowed to use computer equipment; they’re all too stupid to do so competently or securely. They seem to lose data like a drunk loses money on a Saturday night.
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I agree with Harold but what IF the thief passes the information on. As a mother living in Telford, but not in that area, it worries me sick that information of such a sensitive nature can go missing so easily and so often. Every parent works had to ensure their child(ren) and protected but what for when people in positions of so-called authority and trust can ‘lose’ data so easily.
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my childs details was on that ‘memory stick’,does nobody lock the rooms that these idiots leave all their data in?!? they all need sacking.my partner has posted whom ever it is in charge a ‘nice’letter,the memory stick was obviosly NOT password protected as they would have made a point in saying so.
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Steve,
Do you know everybody in the public sector then? What a crass and quite ridiculous comment!
I’ve worked in both public and private sector IT, and believe me I would trust the public sector far more than the private sector with data.
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Bravo, David Burton. Well said. I have wrote to the director of child safety, stating the complete lack of security that was displayed here. Are these authorities ever audited by external sources? I would be amazed if they were. I sometimes wonder why we have security procedures in companies, as no-one seems to take them seriously.
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So Steve, nobody in the private sector has ever mishandled sensitive data then? What about the banks leaving personal information out with their refuse? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m fairly certain that much inter departmental data is transferred by private courier firms – didn’t the recent losses of child benefit information occur whilst in transit?
Don’t get me wrong, I am not defending the actions of whoever is responsible for this, but it’s all too easy to jump on the bandwagon and level misguided accusations at the whole of the public sector.
Convenient isn’t it that we only ever seem to hear about such instances occurring in the public sector? But then; I suppose it wouldn’t make such a good story if a well known private firm misplaced personal data.
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i design IT systems for public and private sector.
Generally the private sector lose more personal data than any public organisation. The difference is the public sector alert the public (to whom they are accountable) of the loss.
The private sector cover up data loss. It impacts on confidence in the organisation and ultimately it’s profit.
I am never surprised by the ease with which i can obtain data from private companies, large and small, simply by asking for it.
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Very serious !!!
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The facility to close down a stolen laptop has been available in the “tech world” for a long time.
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Why does nobody seem interested in anything other than berating the person(s) responsible for the laptop, rather than the person responsible for commiting the crime? Have any of you been the victim of crime? If so it seems like a hypocritical stance to take. Was it your fault somebody couldn’t keep their theiving hands to themselves? I agree that there should have been more protection on the laptop/memory stick, but don’t you think the person feels bad enough, and ultimately it’s not their fault if more protection isn’t in place.
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this country needs something to deter criminals instead of criminals commiting crimes and then thinking oh well never mind they wont do much these days even if we do get caught they have more rights as criminals than we do as normal law abiding citizens .
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I don’t believe it was stolen. These data “thefts” sound fishy to me. Come on, what’s REALLY going on?
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