24 Percent

A civil servant has been suspended for leaving top secret documents on a train. A recent survey showed that 24% of data loss was through paper records, so perhaps this should come as no surprise. As I think back through the past decade or more there has always been one or two occasions each year where records were found, in a skip or beside the road, and before now it was reported and that was that. However today, as we all know, data loss is taken much more seriously.

Electronic data is easily transported, readily copied and therefore simple to use. You can also get a lot of information in a very small space… losing the details on 20 million people in paper form would require a sizeable truck!

We now protect electronic information, either by encryption (if you have a laptop or mobile device) or by content analysis and classification - preventing emails being sent to the wrong people or data being copied unencrypted onto CD ROMs etc. But what to do about paper records? We are back to people and processes. Awareness that paper can be just as damaging as electronic records needs to happen and the processes whereby records are printed out need to be re-examined - especially to ensure the appropriate destruction, eg shredding. In the same way that we are questioning the need for people to have copies of sensitive or confidential electronic information on their laptops, companies should also look at why they need to take bundles of papers home… this would be one case where an electronic version could be more secure.

June 13, 2008 | Filed Under Education, Information Policy, data-loss 

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One Response to “24 Percent”

  1. Get Safe Online (The Blog) / Another day, another data loss on June 17th, 2008

    […] Guy Bunker reminds us that about a quarter of all data loss happens when paper records go missing.  In some ways, […]

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