A recent study shows that over 40%of London’s commercial waste bins contained highly confidential personal details.
Would the results in Oxfordshire be better or worse than London?
According to a study commissioned by the US-based National Association for Information Destruction (NAID), the casual disposal of extremely sensitive personal information is a common practice for a significant portion of London-area organisations.
In a month-long study, private investigators examined the contents of the city’s publicly accessible commercial waste bins in an effort to determine the amount of personal information present there.
Included among the targets were a number of London-area hospitals, law offices, bank headquarters and branch offices, as well as government agencies.
The study was commissioned by NAID to determine whether or not the recently escalated data protection fines, now at £500,000, and the ongoing publicity about the dangers of identity theft were being taken seriously.
According to NAID Europe member Ian MacKay of Oxfordshire based Allshred Limited, “The instructions to the investigators were quite explicit. They were not to go to extraordinary lengths or breach any laws when examining the garbage. We hired them to simply look in the bin to see what any passerby might find.”
Overall, 44% of the institutions, each with a legal burden to protect personal information, were found to be discarding personal information casually.
Among the findings:
- A leading private hospital was found to have discarded the medical records of 70 vulnerable patients – including their names, addresses and details of their treatment.
- Outside a top London law office, a 20-page document, detailing the case of a young woman with mental health problems and currently in foster care, was found on the pavement in a waste bag. All four of the law firms whose commercial garbage was subject to investigation were found to have personal client details in the waste.
- Outside a national chemists store chain, the waste was found to contain over 20 prescription labels including details such as patients’ names, addresses, and details of the medication prescribed. Some also included doctors’ names, dates of birth of patients and information on future requirements for medication.
Stephen Anderson of Crown Intelligence who carried out the study said, “It’s shocking to know that these firms break the law regularly. We couldn’t believe some of the personal information we found just dumped in public rubbish bins that leave people wide open to identity fraud if it fell into the wrong hands.”
Anderson added, “It wasn’t like we found single pieces of paper with a careless note here and there. In most cases there were complete documents, emails, letters, computer print-outs and reports in full.”
Five weeks ago Vince Cable was forced to publicly apologise when documents were found left beside a low wall outside the Business Secretary's constituency headquarters each week in plastic bags for recycling.
In October, Oliver Letwin, the Cabinet Office minister, was forced to apologise after being photographed dumping similar papers in public waste bins in London’s St James’s Park.
NAID reports they are not releasing the names of the organisations that were subject to the investigation.
According to Ian MacKay, “Releasing the names would actually be a disservice to the public. If we make the issue about the bad behaviour of a couple of dozen organisations, we will lose sight of the real issue. The real issue is how wide spread the problem is. It makes no sense to try to isolate a handful of institutions when on any given day, 2 out of 5 organisations are doing the same thing.”
Allshred provide an on-site shredding service for organisations of all sizes and for private individuals. In 2008, Allshred was the first English secure shredding company to gain NAID AAA Certification, the international gold standard for security and operations. They offer guidance on preparing robust policies and procedures for Information Destruction. In early 2012, we will be able to offer new training material for client staff.
