16.08.12
Scottish Borders Council faces data breach fine over pensions records
The Scottish Borders Council (SBC) is facing a major fine for a records breach that took place last September. Hundreds of pension records were sent for recycling and were found by a member of the public, who alerted the police.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) will issue a fine at the end of the month.
In total 676 files relating to the SBC’s Local Government Pension Scheme were deposited in a recycling bank by an external supplier. Once the breach was reported, the council recovered, checked and securely destroyed the records.
The records were mostly related to former employees. SBC has since terminated its arrangement with the contractor involved in the breach.
SBC chief executive Tracey Logan said: “I would like to reassure individuals who may have been affected that, based on the in-depth investigation carried out by our officers, we are confident that no personal information was accessed and the breach was contained upon its discovery.
“Based on the assessment of risk and due to the time that has elapsed since the breach was discovered, we have taken the decision not to write to all individuals.”
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