Public sector staff have culture of inappropriate snooping on personal data

About 30 public sector staff have been sacked in the last year for inappropriately snooping on personal data that had come from the Department for Work and Pensions’ Customer Information System. The database contains details of everyone in the UK and is one of the largest databases in Europe. In total, 180 users are known to have breached the CIS security rules by looking up personal data concerning friends, relatives, colleagues and celebrities. These are the results of a request by Computer Weekly under the Freedom of Information Act. In 2005, the SWP gave other public bodies and Government agencies access to the database. For more on the story, go to: http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2010/07/16/241990/hm-courts-service-staff-breached-government-database-of-personal.htm.