Data breaches down to ‘human error’
CARELESS human error on the part of Tusla staff caused a string of dangerous data breaches – but just one employee has been disciplined.
The CEO of the child and family agency said the litany of mistakes could have been caused by something as simple as workers stuffing the wrong letter into envelopes.
It was revealed last week Tusla accidentally disclosed the location of a mother and child to an alleged abuser.
Tusla chief Bernard Gloster said yesterday: “In simple terms, if you have a mother and child who are separated or moved from an alleged abuser and the alleged abuser ends up in possession of information where they can identify the location of the mother and child – that is, without question, an increase in risk for those people.
“In the context of processing very high volumes of information, staff do make errors. It is often, and it might appear shocking to the public, but it is often as simple as the wrong letter going in the wrong envelope.”
The incident was just one of the 137 breaches the organisation reported to the Data Protection Commissioner last year. In another instance, Tusla accidentally disclosed the address of children in foster care to their father, who was in prison. He used this information to correspond with the children. Tusla also accidentally disclosed the location and school details of foster parents and children to a grandparent who went on to make contact. Mr Gloster said many of the breaches last year happened over email or by post.he told RTE Radio 1 yesterday: “In relation to the breaches we notified to the Commission last year and for the second half of 2018, I think it was 200 in total, almost 100 of those were predominantly associated with postal and email errors.”
But despite the potentially serious consequences only one staff member is facing an investigation over their actions.
Mr Gloster said: “I think people will understand and know these things are quite complex to get to the bottom of.
“There aren’t indications anyone acted maliciously or malevolently in any way.”