Turns out that password protection just ain’t enough anymore. Councils need to encrypt laptops as well, and this was an expensive lesson for London councils of Ealing and Hounslow to learn.

According to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), Ealing council provides an out-of-hours service staffed by nine work-from-home employees. This team are responsible for collating and recording information on clients from the Ealing and Hounslow councils on their laptops.

So far, so good.

Except that two of these council-issued laptops were stolen from an employee’s home. The ICO reports that the laptops contained details of almost 3000 individuals. Despite encryption being part of the council security policy, the laptops only had a password to protect the individuals’ privacy.

The good news is that there is no evidence to suggest that the data was accessed by an unauthorised third party. Nevertheless, Ealing and Hounslow councils were fined £80,000 and £70,000 respectively for breaching the Data Protection Act.

What occurs to me here is that once these fines are paid, who should be the benefactor?

Following the incident, both councils contacted the individuals whose data was at put at risk. I am sure these councils will be reviewing their security policy at a result of this action from the ICO, and let’s hope other councils realise the costly implications of having unprotected personal data on their computers.

If you want to learn about how to protect against data loss, you can request Sophos’s Data Leakage for Dummies or visit this page for information on how to avoid becoming a data loss headline.

• Tom Tom sounds the privacy drum – road safety or no road safety!
  Dutch GPS and navigation software giant, Tom Tom, recently took what I consider to be a small privacy step for the company, but a giant privacy step for mankind.Faced with evidence that the Dutch poli...
• The New York Yankees and DSLReports.com responsible for 30,000 more data loss victims
  This message may repeat. This message may repeat. For those of us old enough to have fond memories of the phonograph, the phrase "broken record" may come to mind.Yes, more user information has been le...
• Data thefts far more common than just Sony and Epsilon
  In the wake of the press reports concerning the recent data breaches at Sony and Epsilon, some organizations are getting the wrong idea about modern online attacks. The media largely chooses to cover ...
• Why you shouldn’t reveal your Royal Wedding Guest name on Facebook
  In the absence of a genuine ticket to the real event, Facebook users are encouraging each other to reveal their Royal Wedding Guest name.Here's a typical message that is currently being spread by well...
• Sony says credit card details *were* encrypted, but questions still remain
  Sony has published a new blog entry, confirming that credit card details which could have been stolen in the recent hack of the PlayStation Network were encrypted.Sony reassured users of the PlayStati...
• Sony PlayStation data breach fiasco: what bugs me about it
  I have been skimming the glut of news stories covering the PlayStation hack following Sony's statement yesterday. The issues that keeps coming back to me are these: 1. Sony, like any company who ke...
• PlayStation Network hacked: Personal data of up to 70 million people stolen
  Users of Sony's PlayStation Network are at risk of identity theft after hackers broke into the system, and accessed the personal information of videogame players. The implications of the hack, which r...
• PlayStation Network hacked: five days and counting..
  The Sony PlayStation Network, used by millions of online videogame players around the world, has been offline since Wednesday 20th April. You can still play games offline, but if you want to connect ...
• Easter Egg locations remain safe, says Bunny spokesperson
  Reports surfaced late today that the Easter Bunny had a minor incident while hiding the last of his eggs during his traditional Easter mission.Every year the Easter Bunny travels the world hiding brig...
• Anger after scam-exposing community shut down by Facebook
  In a bizarre and hard-to-understand move, a Facebook page which claims it helped countless Facebook members stay safe online on the social network has been shut down... by Facebook. The Bulldog Estate...