Adam Richardson

In light of another NHS trust being found to have broken the Data Protection Act (DPA), as a senior manager in the public sector, you may be concerned about how your body can avoid the same fate.

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has revealed that Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust accidentally destroyed 10,000 records that were supposed to be archived.

Such documents should have been kept in a special storage area, but they were instead put in a disposal room and destroyed at the end of December 2010.

And while this would appear to be the opposite problem of losing personal details in the public realm, it still breaches the DPA because Continue Reading

Facebook's storage management could come under intense scrutiny, as the Data Protection Commissioner has launched an investigation into the website's handling of personal details.

Concerns have been raised about how much information the social networking site collates through functions such as the "Like" feature.

It is thought that Facebook – which has 800 million subscribers worldwide – can utilise this to track a person's movements on the internet.

Another issue that has been highlighted is the deleting of photographs, as some users Continue Reading

Are you an independent financial advisor (IFA)? If so, are you 100 per cent certain that you follow data security measures put in place by the Financial Services Authority (FSA)?

Even if you try your hardest to follow the rules, you could accidentally be leaving gaps in your information compliance procedures.

That is because according to a new study published in the Financial Times Adviser, 80 per cent of IFAs do not meet the FSA's criteria.

Less than a fifth of those questioned encrypted backed-up data to the FSA standard.

Are you guilty of falling into this percentage?

Meanwhile, data has been lost by 11 per cent of IFAs, while three per cent admitted to never backing up their data, the Durell Software poll reveals.

Of those who do back up, three per Continue Reading

Have you embraced tiering as part of your data storage management?

If not, it could be time to think again.

As Chris Mellor, writing for The Register, simply states: "One size does not fit all and valuable data should not be stored on slow-speed disk drives along with ordinary data."

The type of information needs to match its chosen storage method and this is where tiering comes into play.

Disk drive arrays help differentiate between last year's reports that perhaps only need looking at once – or not at all – month-old emails and sales order processing, for example. You will want the old reports kept out of the way and Continue Reading

Businesses are encouraging personal devices to be used by staff in order to make them more efficient and flexible.

However, a new survey commissioned by Dell KACE has revealed that more than 80 per cent of IT managers are worried about the use of these items in the workplace.

A further 62 per cent are especially concerned about potential network security breaches.

The Consumerization of IT: A Survey of IT Professionals poll – which was carried out by Dimensional Research – found that nearly 90 per cent of employees use tablets, mobile telephones or laptops for work tasks.

It could therefore be a wise move for firms to include personal devices in data management and compliance policies to ensure risks to their IT infrastructures are kept to a minimum.

Study author Diane Hagglund explained that these personal devices are how businesses will be run in the long term, "especially in the small and medium business market, so it is critical that companies put policies and standards into place to support these devices to ensure the security of corporate and intellectual property".

A recent survey by Clearswift found that 57 per cent of managers are worried about the security of social media websites, especially when accessed at work.

It is important to get employee support for green business initiatives – especially as these are the workers who will be faced with any changes.

This is according to head of business at Global Action Plan Amy Wilson, who was speaking to founding editor of BusinessGreen James Murray during a webinar.

She explained that because the wider workforce deal with new regulations and processes, it is vital to have them on side for effective sustainability.

"Utilise motivated staff – find your environmental change agents, your green champions, those who are already enthusiastic and motivated about the environment and use that enthusiasm to engage others," Ms Wilson urged.

One way firms could increase their IT's efficiency is through unified storage, which enables applications and files to be run from a single device.

According to EMC, the capacity savings enjoyed by deploying its VNX unified storage products can be up to 50 per cent.

Walsall Council has breached the Data Protection Act (DPA) following the disposal of voters' postal statements in a skip.

An external contractor hired by the local authority disposed of the documents in March of this year, with 951 statements yet to be recovered.

It is thought the files – which contained information such as signatures, addresses and dates of birth – have since been destroyed or taken to landfill.

The data compliance error was reported by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), with director of operations Simon Entwistle saying: "While councils can hire contractors to process personal information on their behalf, they must remember that they are still ultimately responsible for ensuring people's information is kept secure."

As such, the DPA was breached as Walsall Council – which has since signed an undertaking – did not inform the contractor of data compliance requirements.

It was recently revealed by the ICO that the DPA was broken by the University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust after a medical student lost a USB pen containing information about 87 patients.

Posted by Adam

Data compliance regulations have been breached at an NHS trust based in Lancashire, after a medical student took home personal information on an unencrypted USB device.

The University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust admitted that the sensitive treatment data of 87 patients had been lost when the student later misplaced the memory stick.

An investigation by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) found the organisation had assumed the individual had been trained in correct data management protocols, which had not been the case.

The hospital has since stated it will take steps to avoid similar data compliance problems arising in the future.

Sally Anne Poole, acting head of enforcement at the ICO, said: "Medics handle some of the most sensitive personal information possible and it is vital that they understand the need to keep it secure at all times."

This comes just one week after the ICO revealed two separate breaches of data compliance at the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration, with information relating to five young people being handled inappropriately.

The worldwide external controller-based (ECB) market is currently led by EMC, which for the second quarter of this year took a 31.5 per cent share.

This is according to a new study by Gartner, which showed the vendor experienced revenue in this area of more than $1.6 billion (£989 million).

Such revenue is up from more than $1.2 billion during the same quarter in 2010, a period where EMC's market share was 27.8 per cent.

"Client inquiries underpin the observation that IT executives remain willing to invest in modern ECB disk storage solutions to improve operational efficiency and minimise the impact of unabated terabyte growth," Gartner research vice-president Roger Cox explained.

He added that ECB disk storage supports desktop and server virtualisation and the move from backup and recovery tape solutions to disk.

Such findings come after IDC recently stated that during the second quarter of this year, EMC's global external disk storage revenue share was 28.7 per cent, a 26 per cent hike on 2010.

Unified storage is one way organisations can deploy efficient IT, as less capacity – and therefore potentially fewer servers – are needed to store data.

However, another route firms could also take is by using carbon reduction software.

According to ecoConnect CIC, this type of software can be easily and quickly deployed to a business's PCs, allowing it to monitor results.

"For instance, it can help you at a click of a button to be able to put PCs, desktops, laptops – whatever's on a network – to sleep when people step away from their desks," chief executive of the firm Robert Hokin explained.

He added this feature can reduce a person's power consumption by 15 per cent each day.

This can then result in financial savings for a company as energy expenses are reduced.

Mr Hokin also suggested companies recycle their old IT to help minimise their carbon footprint.