Colchester City Council has written to all residents and customers affected by a recent data breach related to personal data storage by its supplier Capita.
Capita is used by the council to run its benefits processes, with the company entrusted to provide auditing services for council tax and benefits for the past six years.
Capita reported a security issue, last month, where personal data, including some from Colchester's customers, had been discovered on its unsecured data storage area.
The historical data from the 2019/20 and 2020/21 financial years compromised records of names, addresses, benefits account references, and the names of benefits received, but does not contain any bank details.
Capita has since acted to secure the data and have confirmed that there is no current evidence of persons accessing the data for malicious purposes.
The council has reported the breach to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK's data protection regulator, and promised to implement their recommended measures.
In the letter, the council’s Data Protection Officer expressed the authority’s extreme disappointed that Capita has failed to maintain the high-security standards it expects of its suppliers, adding: “We continue to work with them to ensure that future data entrusted to Capita is held securely, and would like to apologise unreservedly for the incident.”
Page last reviewed: 20 June 2023