Accreditations
| Be careful when you dispose of old computers |
 |
 |
|
We always recommend clients wipe hard disks before disposing of their computers. Hitting the delete button is not enough to get rid of the information, so extra protection is required. For general use PCs a tool such as Dukes Boot and Nuke (DBAN) is great - overwriting your files with lots of rubbish data to make your information irretrievable. And for more sensitive machines and file servers disks can be shredded and physically destroyed for a couple of pounds. An NHS Trust has now fallen foul of the Data Protection Act and risks a hefty fine for losing hard disks from old computers. Confidential information belonging to patients and staff were at risk of being exposed after computer hard drives were stolen and put up for sale on eBay. The hard drives were taken from computers in a locked store at Brighton General Hospital where they were being decommissioned. Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust is facing a possible £375,000 fine after over 200 hard disks from old computers were stolen from their premises. The drives had not yet been decommissioned, and there was the potential for them to still have confidential health records on them. The Trust says there is a very low risk of any data being passed into the public domain and is contesting the fine. If you hold personal data, make sure you fully remove it before you dispose of your computers. And if the data is particularly sensitive, encrypt the drive when you are using it so that even if it is stolen or lost the data is safe. |