back to article Brit doctors surgery fined £35k over medical data fumble

Bayswater Medical Centre (BMC) in London is licking its wounds after taking a not insignificant punch to the wallet for discarding highly sensitive medical information in an empty building for a year and a half. bloody knife surgeon NHS Barnet reveals 187 breaches of personal data READ MORE The Information Commissioner's …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "The severity of this breach "merited" a fine of £80,000"

    Not only do the ICO offer volume discounts, they also have a rate card and a charity arm.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "The severity of this breach "merited" a fine of £80,000"

      cut to £35,000 after the BMC's ability to cough payment was considered.

      Fuck that. Hammer the bastards.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "The severity of this breach "merited" a fine of £80,000"

        Hammer the bastards.

        As primarily an NHS GP practice, the impact of the fine will presumably land on the two partners. I think you'll find that £35k out of their personal pockets will be a considerable incentive, far more so than fining somebody like Talktalk a couple of million quid.

        1. Adam 52 Silver badge

          Re: "The severity of this breach "merited" a fine of £80,000"

          It's a start but not really a considerable incentive to avoid what was a gross dereliction of basic medical ethics. Losing medical records is about as bad as a data confidentiality breach as is possible.

          With GP partner pay at £100k, it's an effective fine of about 10% of annual salary, taking into account tax.

          Hopefully their patients will sue for damages. Too much to hope that the GMC will do anything.

        2. tip pc Silver badge

          Re: "The severity of this breach "merited" a fine of £80,000"

          on ~ £100k take home will be ~£66k, £35k/2 = £17.5k so each partner gets a 26% take home pay fine in trade for exposing their patients private data.

          personally i feel the fine should have been higher to make an example of them and deter other doctors from acting in that way.

      2. Kernel

        Re: "The severity of this breach "merited" a fine of £80,000"

        "Fuck that. Hammer the bastards."

        Yep - and since it's obviously not a large or wealthy practice, let's fine 'em enough kill the practice completely - after all, it's not as if their patients won't be able to find another doctor, or even do without medical care at all.

  2. JimmyPage Silver badge
    Flame

    It's getting harder and harder to read UK data breach stories ...

    Why ?

    Because the sound of the rest of the world laughing just gets louder and louder.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's getting harder and harder to read UK data breach stories ...

      Because the sound of the rest of the world laughing just gets louder and louder.

      I'd imagine the Yanks are laughing about how small our data breaches are....

      1. Teiwaz

        Re: It's getting harder and harder to read UK data breach stories ...

        I'd imagine the Yanks are laughing about how small our data breaches are....

        And if you count the difference in population scale.

        Of course the U.S ones are big, for one reason or another, they end up hoovering data up from the rest of the planet as well as their own.

        UK data breaches affect UK, US data breaches also seem to end up affecting UK too....

  3. The Nazz

    ... in empty buildings ... ha ha ...

    That's the local council fucked every Friday afternoon then.

    *BiL, a council "professional", a manager (ahem) proudly stated that he worked only six Fridays last year, what with 38 days annual holiday, bank holidays and "time in loo".

  4. W.S.Gosset

    Typo?

    >found a "large quantity" of the data left on decks

    Desks?

    Or was the office desked out in a nautical theme?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    urbex

    When I used to urbex about ten years ago we found all kinds of records in abandoned hospitals and police stations in the North West.

    If you were ever a patient at the STI clinic in South Manchester we had a great afternoon looking through your records!

  6. hayzoos

    Similar happened near here about 15 yrs ago

    The similarity is abandoned medical records. Near here is the village of Colver, Cambria Co., PA, USA, a mining town whose hospital folded in the early 1970's. The building was boarded up and due to unpaid property taxes and ownership by a now defunct company, the county assumed ownership. There was a news story around 2003 about medical records blowing around the town due to the boards of the boarded up building rotting away. Records were collected and moved to county record storage at the former county prison where they give public tours. Somebody I know went on such tour a while ago and said many records are in banker's boxes in the old cells unlocked and doors open.

    Nothing to see here, don't hold up the tour, just move along and be sure to stop in the gift shop on you way out.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Blackpool Medical Records !

    If You are from Blackpool I may have your medical records.

    I purchased a PC on Ebay and did a recovery of the HDD as i do with all my purchased disks before i DBAN them.

    On one PC i have a GP surgeries patient records and letters between GP and Hospitals.

    Another PC i Purchased was from a Law firm in London (Nr Old Street) and has letters between lawyers about cases with evidence and personal details etc. as well as having unlicensed copies of windows and office on it !

    Need to check my latest purchase over the weekend. I'm interested to see what i find!

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