ICO picks up Portsmouth over privacy breach

The council has agreed to introduce new information security measures so that a similar incident cannot occur again. The Information Commissioner's Office said that Portsmouth had mistakenly included sensitive information about one individual in response to the request by another individual to see their own records. An investigation by the ICO found that the person editing the documents was not employed by the council and was not covered by a formal contract. Mike Gorrill, head of enforcement at the ICO, said: "This breach of the Data Protection Act was entirely avoidable, and would not have happened if individuals dealing with the request had been given proper training and necessary levels of support. "The fact that the information wasn't directly involved in the original request, could have caused a great deal of embarrassment and distress." The chief executive of Portsmouth City Council, David Williams, has signed a formal undertaking that all relevant staff are trained in handling requests from individuals for access to their records. Portsmouth has also agreed that in future individuals who edit personal information during access requests will be either council employees or under a formal contract.