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Departmental Data Protection

Volume 480: debated on Wednesday 8 October 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many officials in his Department have been disciplined in each of the last three years for misconduct involving misuse of personal data. (223635)

Records in the former DCA show that three members of staff have been disciplined for inappropriate use of personal or sensitive data in the last three years, all in 2006.

Prison Service records show that members of staff have been disciplined and dismissed for inappropriate use of personal or sensitive data in the last three years. In some of these cases, the inappropriate use of data has been part of a wide range of charges against the members of staff:

April 2005-March 2006: Nil

April 2006-March 2007: Six members of staff were subject to formal disciplinary action and, of these, three were subsequently dismissed from service.

April 2007-March 2008: One member of staff was subject to formal disciplinary action and was subsequently dismissed from service.

Centrally held records in NOMS and OCJR there have been no recorded cases of discipline or dismissal for breaches of data protection and inappropriate use of personal or sensitive data.