EXTRA security measures are to be introduced at City of York Council after the authority breached the Data Protection Act by mistakenly disclosing personal information.

The Information Commissioner’s Office said the breach was reported on February 10 after sensitive information regarding an individual was accidentally sent out to another unrelated person.

According to the ICO, the findings have led to City of York Council chief executive Kersten England signing an undertaking to ensure that new procedures are put in place to prevent it happening again. The mix-up at the centre of the case happened when the personal information was accidentally collected with other letters from a printer.

The council will also bring in quality control checks on all the information they handle prior to distribution, as well as extending their clear desk policy to include printer trays and post trays.

Sally-Anne Poole, the ICO’s acting head of enforcement, welcomed the measures.

She said: “This case highlights the need for employees to take responsibility and ownership of tasks that involve handling personal data. If the documents had not been left unattended by the printer and had been carefully checked before they were sent out then this situation could easily have been avoided.

“The council has agreed that all of the measures outlined in the undertaking will be in place within the next four months.

“We are pleased the City of York Council has introduced new security measures governing the use of its printers and that staff will now be required to carry out appropriate quality control checks to avoid information being incorrectly disclosed in this manner.”

Miss England said: “We take the confidentiality of our customers extremely seriously and have already put measures in place to ensure that our controls are even more stringent.”