A SECONDARY school in Birmingham has been forced to take action after a laptop containing the personal information of hundreds of pupils was stolen.
The laptop, which was being used by a teacher, was taken from a locked classroom at Waseley Hills High School and Sixth Form Centre in School Road, Rubery, earlier this year.
The school, which just falls within Worcestershire education authority, has now been found to have committed a data breach by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which investigates such matters.
It has responded to the theft, which occurred in July, by taking a series of steps both to reduce the risk of thefts and to protect sensitive information about pupils.
The theft of the laptop had been reported to the ICO by Waseley Hills High’s previous head teacher, David Thurburton.
The unencrypted computer, which has never been recovered, contained the personal data of 984 pupils and 186 members of staff.
New head teacher Alan Roll said: “The laptop was stolen from the school site after a classroom was forcibly entered. It was an opportunist theft.
“It was being used to plan timetables and so had the names of all the pupils at the school. There was only a minimal amount of other information, which would have been encoded and indecipherable.
“But since the theft, we have taken lots of remedial action. We no longer keep the information in that format, and have also made changes as to where it is kept and who has access to it. And we have also made the room where the equipment is stored more secure.”
Waseley Hills High has signed a formal undertaking committing it to taking a number of steps to ensure that personal data is processed in compliance with the Data Protection Act. This includes ensuring that any personal data required to be held on a portable device is suitably encrypted where necessary.
Mick Gorrill, assistant information commissioner at the ICO, said: “Storing large volumes of personal information on portable devices is unnecessarily risky.
“It is vital that personal information is handled securely, especially where so many children and young people are concerned. I am pleased the school has taken action to guard against security breaches in future.”
