“Incompetent” council leaks details of students with special educational needs

The good news: Central Bedfordshire Council in the UK responded to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from parents campaigning for their children with special educational needs (SEND).

The bad news: Central Bedfordshire Council failed to properly redact the details of ‘dozens and dozens’ of pupils with special educational needs, publishing them on a public website.

Oh dear oh dear. Who needs hackers, eh? All you have to do is make a Freedom of Information Request…

Campaigners for the Central Bedfordshire SEND Action Group were reportedly unimpressed:

Campaigners released a statement saying: “We were extremely concerned, yet unsurprised to learn about the data breach. It is the latest in a long history of incompetence and disregard for the law in relation to SEND families.

“This catastrophic mistake poses a particular safeguarding risk to fostered and adopted children and demonstrates the ongoing culture of negligence toward SEND children that has been ingrained at CBC for at least a decade.”

Central Bedfordshire Council apologised for the goof, and said it had reported the incident to the Information Commissioner’s Office. It also said it would be making changes to its procedures to avoid a repeat of the incident in the future.

Hopefully some appropriate staff training about the importance of protecting the private personal information of individuals will be one of the enhancements the council makes.

Found this article interesting? Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter, Mastodon, or Threads to read more of the exclusive content we post.

Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is an award-winning keynote speaker who has given presentations around the world about cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. A veteran of the computer security industry since the early 1990s, he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows, makes regular media appearances, and is the co-host of the popular "Smashing Security" podcast. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.