Council admits data breach affecting 6,000+ customers but avoids ICO action
The Information Commissioner’s Office will reportedly not take action at this time against Chelmsford City Council after a website-related error caused personal data uploaded by more than 6,000 customers to become publicly accessible online.
Chelmsford, which reported the incident to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), said: “This is because the council has quickly responded to the issue by taking the correct remedial steps to address the breach and prevent any future occurrences.”
The error meant that the customers’ data was available online between 14 November 2018 and 14 December 2018.
These databases contained certain personal information provided by some customers through the council’s online forms. This included the individuals’ name, address, email address, telephone number, and on one specific form, national insurance numbers. The council does not store any bank details on the website.
Cllr Anthony McQuiggan, Cabinet Member for Corporate Services and Information Technology at Chelmsford, said: “We take the protection of personal information seriously, and we have acted with immediate effect to address the website error. Since we cannot be sure if the records of these individuals have been viewed, we have reported this issue to the ICO, taken immediate actions to secure our databases, and contacted customers proactively to notify them of the issue. No financial data has been compromised.
“Our investigations have not found any evidence of fraudulent activity related to this event. However, we are taking the precautionary measure of contacting all 6,771 individuals. We have carried out a full and thorough investigation into the cause and implications of this data breach. The council is also currently conducting a full review of its online security policies and safeguards.
“We are very sorry that this situation has arisen and apologise for any distress or inconvenience that this may have caused to those individuals affected.”
