English education authority loses data on pupils

Silicon.com reports: the Information Commissioner's Office has said Wigan Council breached data-protection law by allowing unencrypted data on 43,000 school pupils to be downloaded to a laptop.

The laptop was then stolen. It had been stored in a locked office, but not encrypted, according to the ICO. The person who downloaded the data to the laptop was breaching council policy, but there was no block on them doing so.

Joyce Redfearn, chief executive of Wigan Council, has signed an undertaking stating that the council will encrypt data on portable devices in future.

One trusts that the Welsh Assembly Government already has advice to local education authorities in place.