The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has denied this week that it breached data protection rules after it bungled an attempt to redact a document on its own website.
The SDT had published a memorandum giving the details of a court order against former solicitor John James. The SDT was seeking to recover costs of £13,908 from James who was struck off in 2013 after he fabricating an attendance note. While the SDT blacked out portions of the document relating to James' address, sources pointed out to RollOnFriday that anyone copying and pasting the document was presented with the full, unredacted text.
Susan Humble, the CEO of the SDT, told RollOnFriday, "I accept that if one goes to the trouble to copy and paste the redacted pdf Memorandum into a Word document, the latter reveals the address". But, she said, "There has been no breach of data principles here, and no question of the SDT having 'lost personal data' as the result of a technical error in carrying out a redaction".
The SDT subsequently removed the redacted document from its website and Humble provided an unredacted version to RollOnFriday, to go with the one we'd already made in Microsoft Word. Humble said the order was "a matter of public record" in its unredacted form, so it is not clear why the SDT attempted to redact details of it in the first place.
Humble confirmed that "We will give further training to staff so that this does not happen again". Before clarifying the SDT's position by explaining "Alternatively we will make a decision to publish all addresses in full in the Judgment/Memoranda".
She added, "For what it is worth I think RollOnFriday should be educating trainees and young solicitors on how not to end up like Mr James". RollOnFriday referred her to the enlightening and instructional Dodgy Solicitors archive.
Tip Off ROF
The SDT had published a memorandum giving the details of a court order against former solicitor John James. The SDT was seeking to recover costs of £13,908 from James who was struck off in 2013 after he fabricating an attendance note. While the SDT blacked out portions of the document relating to James' address, sources pointed out to RollOnFriday that anyone copying and pasting the document was presented with the full, unredacted text.
Susan Humble, the CEO of the SDT, told RollOnFriday, "I accept that if one goes to the trouble to copy and paste the redacted pdf Memorandum into a Word document, the latter reveals the address". But, she said, "There has been no breach of data principles here, and no question of the SDT having 'lost personal data' as the result of a technical error in carrying out a redaction".
 |
The SDT's crack data protection team in action |
The SDT subsequently removed the redacted document from its website and Humble provided an unredacted version to RollOnFriday, to go with the one we'd already made in Microsoft Word. Humble said the order was "a matter of public record" in its unredacted form, so it is not clear why the SDT attempted to redact details of it in the first place.
Humble confirmed that "We will give further training to staff so that this does not happen again". Before clarifying the SDT's position by explaining "Alternatively we will make a decision to publish all addresses in full in the Judgment/Memoranda".
She added, "For what it is worth I think RollOnFriday should be educating trainees and young solicitors on how not to end up like Mr James". RollOnFriday referred her to the enlightening and instructional Dodgy Solicitors archive.
Comments
371
363
And imagine how much trouble we'd be if one of us posted an unredacted document on the internet which provided confidential client information. Bad form, SDT. Own your mistake!
367
363
Home addresses of those investigated are therefore fair game?
371
354
360
370
377
353