Essex County Council admits "data breach" as Basildon woman receives personal e-mail (From Basildon Recorder)

Essex County Council admits "data breach" as Basildon woman receives personal e-mail

7:00am Wednesday 13th February 2013 in News

Tina Tuck, who received an e-mail in error from Essex County Council

A WOMAN is questioning how secure information stored by Essex County Council is after she received a confidential e-mail that went into detail about a pensioner’s healthcare needs.

The council’s Total Care service sent Tina Tuck, 52, of Noak Bridge, Basildon, an e-mail which contained personal information about a woman in social care and details of her illness.

Mrs Tuck immediately complained when she realised what she had been sent and the county council has admitted there has been a “data breach”, but just apologised and asked her to delete the e-mail, which she doesn’t think is good enough.

“They’ve gone too far this time,” she said.

“Why should I just delete the e-mail because they have done wrong? They want me to just bury it and I won’t do it.

“It’s not like it’s come to me by mistake, I’m an actual recipient of this e-mail.”

Mrs Tuck has been in regular contact with the authority about the standard of social care her mother is receiving while in a care home and believes she has somehow been added to the employee’s online address book.

She has previously received chain junk e-mails that were also sent to hundreds of council workers which prompted her to complain to the leader of the council, Peter Martin.

When this latest e-mail arrived, Mrs Tuck thought it was something to do with the queries about her mum.

An Essex County Council spokeswoman said: “We would like to reassure all customers that we take incidents such as this extremely seriously.

“An investigation into this data breach has been launched. Both of the affected parties have been informed and provided with contact details for further support should this be required.”