Priorities
"He was ordered to pay a £1,050 fine, £1,160 towards prosecution costs, and a £15 victims’ surcharge."
The State gets 47.19%, the lawyers get 52.13%, and the victims (note plural) get 0.67%.
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A man who worked for a firm of ambulance-chasers must pay more than £2000 in fines and costs after being convicted of illegally obtaining NHS patients' personal information and using it for commercial gain. Martin Campbell, who was working for the Bury-based personal injuries firm Direct Assist at the time, lifted data …
Would be a far more accurate headline. I'd prefer the article to be more about the fact that the ICO did it's job for once rather than just sitting around watching the world go by ignoring all and sundry whilst they breech the data protection act. Mind you, this case does seem surprisingly simple, maybe it's the only case on their books that they had the mental capacity to bring a successful prosecution for.
"...without any legitimate reason to do so, and the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) was called in."
And the ICO decided to issue him with a firm smack on the wrist and a finger wagging whilst saying "you're a naughty boy, don't do it again!"
FFS how much longer can this bunch of spineless incompetents keep on doing this before our Government realises that the ICO is simply not fit for purpose and replaces them with a Watchdog that has both a set of teeth and the balls to use them?
If our NHS records get uploaded to some form of central database this sort of thing will be going on every bloody day!
She was sacked and later went psycho, apparently killing her child and attempting suicide. The ICO didn't bother chasing her because she's already well cared for at Her Majesty's pleasure.
They did however take the boyfriend Campbell to court, where he was found guilty.
Do read the article, eh?
As an NHS IT worker I'm expected to follow all the rules on patient confidentiality, data protection etc etc and I'd be rightly pissed off if my information was passed to scum like this, hence also opting out of the central clinical rwecords project.
The fine is pitiful compared to what the firm would earn, probably about a month's wages for him alone - certainly more than a month for me but that's the public services pay scale for you - he should have been fined a hell of a lot more than that. The damage to the reputation of the NHS as a whole is not reflected in the painfully low fine imposed.
I've recently received a letter from the ICO, five months after I notified them that an NHS Trust was trying to go back on a previous agreement that they'd been involved in, telling me that they're going to assign someone to look at it quite soon.
Thankfully, in the meantime I managed to find a solicitor who got the Trust to back down after threatening them with legal action.
Paris, 'cos she's about as quick and useful.