Serious data breach in HIV clinic in London

A clinic in London has been fined 180.000 GBP due to a “serious data breach”. The clinic offered a service to HIV-patients in order to receive newsletters and test results as well as make appointments via email. It sent an email newsletter to 781 of its patients with all patient emailaddresses in the “To” field and not in the “Bcc” field. 730 of the emailaddresses included the full names of the patients. The newsletter was used to inform the patients about sexual health services and general treatment details. The Information Commissioner´s Office (ICO) said, “the breach caused a great deal of upset to the people affected”. Information about the health or sexual life of a person is considered to be sensitive personal data and should be protected specifically. Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the clinic, has been fined 180.000 GBP. The responsible ICO investigation trust discovered, that a similar error had happened already in March 2010. Although some remedial measures were taken at that time, no specific training had taken place since then.