The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is giving its views at a Scottish data protection conference. It’s running in Edinburgh on February 24.
Organisers Holyrood Magazine say that as businesses realise the value in obtaining, analysing and using information about individuals, the value of personal data has surged. Mirroring this growth has been the development of further laws to ensure that individuals’ privacy is not abused nor information about them exploited. Lord McNally launched a review of the UK data protection directive and the EU equivalent on coming into office. Hear directly from the Minister the result of this process.
Speakers invited include Carol Peters, Information Security Officer, East Renfrewshire Council; Lord McNally, Minister of State, UK Government and Deputy Leader of the House of Lords; and Christopher Graham, Information Commissioner.
Workshops will cover protecting and sharing sensitive data; data protection in the cloud; and penalties for wrong-doing, spelt out by Dr Ken Macdonald, Assistant Information Commissioner (Scotland and Northern Ireland)??The enforcement powers of the UK Information Commissioner were extended substantially from April 2010 by enabling him to levy civil monetary penalties on organisations which recklessly breach the Data Protection principles. Fines of up to £500,000 can be imposed and he has already served the first penalty notices on data controllers.
Data protection issues largely revolve around the safety of sensitive, personal information however the need to encrypt sensitive data should apply equally to all companies and organisations that need to protect information which is sensitive for them and which needs protecting from both unauthorised internal users and from external threats, such as hacking or phishing. Encryption is also absolutely essential, if you are to avoid the risk of fines from the ICO.
To download the event brochure, visit –
http://dataprotection.holyrood.com/agenda
And Lord McNally, Minister of State, Ministry of Justice David Smith, Deputy Commissioner and Director of Data Protection at the ICO are among speakers at an ICO conference in Manchester on some similar themes on March 8.
