HMRC manual on data protection was protected data
Juniors kept in dark, then hung out to dry? Yes Minister
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HMRC restricted details of its security procedures to senior officials, it has emerged, just weeks after the department pilloried a junior official for loading the UK’s child benefit database onto CDs which were then lost.
The department had a detailed manual covering procedures for handling the benefits database and other sensitive information. However, the manual itself was considered too sensitive to be widely distributed, so it was restricted to civil servants only, The Guardian reports.
Junior staff – ie, the sort of people who will probably be doing most of the grunt work in any large organization – were treated instead to a web-hosted much more general version, reminding them of the need to respect confidentiality, the paper reports.
The disclosure makes the government’s initial fingerpointing at a junior official for downloading the data look even more unfair. It quickly emerged that more senior officials had actually ordered the downloading of the data.
HMRC refused to comment on The Guardian’s story this morning, saying it would be inappropriate ahead of this afternoon’s release of the preliminary report into the data debacle.
But a spokeswoman for the department said there were several sets of procedures within the department.
“That’s what the review was called to look at,” a spokeswoman said. ®
COMMENTS
Official (SECRET)Data handling Manual
Rember it is on an Oficial File so it is an Official Scecret.So therfore not to be divulged to any one that actualy needs to use it:p
The proper term is "protectively marked"
That document comes normally as part of a full set from the CESG library, and is issued (as far as I recall) annually or when updates occur in any of the docs. It's quite comprehensive, but the fact that it is protectively marked is quite a pain because it imposes some storage requirements if you want to do it right.
Having said that, it's not super secret AFAIK and anyone who has signed the Official Secrets Acts (OSA) should IMHO be able to see at least that part, or maybe there's a way in which CESG can create an extract for junior servants to read. Maybe they have, I unsubscribed from it years ago so my knowledge may be a bit dated.
There is, however, a snag with this library which may explain why it's not that well read.
It's distributed ..
.. on CD :-).
@ yeah, right
Surely you mean a sign saying "beware of the leopard" ?
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