Solicitor issues hacking warning

In the aftermath of the phone hacking scandal, businesses need to ensure they have procedures in place to protect customer data, a Wiltshire solicitor has warned.

Karen Thomas, from the dispute resolution team at Withy King solicitors, said: “In a recent BBC radio interview, the Information Commissioner referred to the ‘rogues’ who sell personal data for profit and the ‘knaves’ who are duped into selling it to them and suggested that such a serious problem is in danger of being overshadowed by recent ‘hacking’ allegations.

“Businesses need to be very careful to ensure that they do not act in breach of an individual’s privacy and personal information.”
All public and private organisations are legally obliged to protect any personal information they hold, and may be required to register with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

‘Personal data’ is data which relates to a living individual who can be identified from that data, for example a name and address.
Such data must be dealt with in a particular way and failure to do so may amount to a criminal offence.

Karen´s top tips for for ensuring compliance are:

• Appoint someone to be responsible for compliance
• Check whether you need to register with the ICO
• Audit your use of personal data
• Check compliance with the data protection principles
• Have a written data protection policy
• Ensure data processors engaged by you comply with security measures.

“Ensuring compliance is not easy but it’s essential that you get it right.  Demonstrating to the ICO that you have taken every effort to ensure compliance by implementing some basic protections will count in your favour should there be an inadvertent breach,” said Karen. 

For help and advice with compliance, log on to www.withyking.co.uk/site/people/profile/karen.thomas