As a follow-up to a breach posted previously on this blog, a press release from the UK ICO:
Co-operative Life Planning (CLP) breached the Data Protection Act by failing to ensure a contractor followed the company’s security procedures, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said today. The incident led to personal details relating to 82,000 customers accidentally being made available online.
In March 2011 an electronic file that had been repaired by CLP’s software support contractor was hacked into. The file, which was stored on the contractor’s server, contained personal data relating to tens of thousands of customers who had previously paid into funeral insurance policies, including names, date of births, addresses and insurance contributions. These details were then accidentally made available online.
Acting Head of Enforcement, Sally-Anne Poole said:
“This case highlights the need for companies to ensure their contractors are following procedures on keeping customers’ personal information secure. Co-operative Life Planning’s customers had an expectation that the organisation would keep their details safe and they have been let down by this breach.
“The ICO takes breaches of the law extremely seriously and always seeks to take the most appropriate level of enforcement action. In this case, a monetary penalty was not appropriate because the information that was compromised was unlikely to cause substantial damage or distress, and its disclosure didn’t present a significant risk to the individuals affected. Co-operative Life Planning also had appropriate policies already in place around protecting personal information stored on their servers. Our focus has therefore been to make sure the organisation commits to making improvements to stop this from happening again and we are pleased that they are being put in place.”
CLP supplied the Commissioner with a report about the incident on 8 March 2011. The ICO’s investigation found that the software support services provider had no authorisation to copy the data from the organisation’s servers and failed to delete the information once the file had been repaired. CLP also failed to realise that the data had been transferred on two separate occasions and were unaware that customers’ details had been made available online.
On being informed of the breach, CLP ensured that the data was securely deleted by the software services provider. The provider also made sure that, as far as possible, the information was no longer available online.
Ian Mackie, Managing Director of CLP, has signed an undertaking to ensure that the Data Loss Prevention software already tested by the group will be introduced across all the company’s servers. The organisation will also carry out testing of all future databases which are subject to maintenance to ensure that the data remains secure.