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A HSE LAPTOP containing personal data of children attending the HSE’s Speech and Language Therapy Service in Donegal has been stolen from the boot of a car of a HSE staff member.
Highland Radio in Donegal has published a letter that was sent to the parents of the children concerned this week. The letter states that the Data Protection Commissioner instructed the HSE to inform the parents of the laptop theft.
It also states that the age groups, schools, addresses and phone numbers of a number of children was contained on the laptops.
The HSE apologised for the breach and states that steps are being taken to prevent any similar reoccurrence.
Should have been encrypted. Not exactly rocket science these days!
Did the report say the data wasn’t encrypted?
Michael: if it was encrypted they probably wouldn’t be reporting this… You cannot access encrypted laptop – virtually impossible to get anything out of it.
It is encrypted according to this report http://www.highlandradio.com/2014/11/13/hse-confirms-details-of-180-children-were-on-stolen-laptop/
Surely they are password protected…
Password is useless unless it was encrypted.
Who told you that Reg, m8?
Its easy to bypass the password. Encryption is much harder.
Password is ” can’t get sacked “
You can bypass the password with a bootable CD or USB drive Bill. You can even change the Windows password once booted to one of these media.
Microsoft even have a tool that you can do this with – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee460909.aspx
Boom
Seems like there are enough tools in the HSE already.
i thought it was against the law to remove confidential medical info from place of work these days?
This is Ireland.
Place of work isn’t always stationary.
Quick call John Tierney – he’ll have a consultant to deal with this !
Who’d ye think stole it? I knew he’d find a way to get people’s PPS numbers!
Dope
Given the number of incidents like this in the past, how is sensitive information not stored and encrypted on a central server – with the laptop only being used to access the information without saving it on the laptop. The mind bogglesz
“Steps are being taken to ensure a reoccurrence doesn’t happen again, ie they are doing the same thing they did the last time it happened, nothing.
Place of work NOT stationary agreed, but in a world of thin clients and superfast connection speeds data like this should NOT have been on the hard drive of a laptop encrypted or not.
Super fast data connections in Donegal, from what planet do you come from? :)
IT should have been using safe boot on these machines. Business do. So should gov state bodies. What an utter disgrace.
Crap IT. Did the HSE never hear of “cloud” data storage.
No because their heads are in the clouds.
Yea .. The cloud your data not stored in a safe harbour …..
So what kind of a nincompoop leaves a laptop on view in a car?
It was in the boot.
Oops. Sorry. Missed that bit.
It stated in the article that it was in the BOOTH of the car…
Where is the BOOTH in a car?
deja vu
they should be sacked straight away.
Reading The Journal on my ‘new’ laptop right now.Thank you The Journal for letting me know what I have actually got. Must log on to deep net later.A few quid to be made me thinks.
Have a nap, Hann……
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