Council's data security blunder over bank cards photos

A council created a major data security blunder by saving images of people's bank cards on its internal communications channels, a report has revealed.

Manchester City Council's audit committee said the bank card photos were saved so staff members could verify people's bank details when needed.

But the audit report said that created a "critical" and "avoidable" data security risk and urged the council to stop saving such images.

The report section was focused on payments to individuals for children's social care. The council said there was no security breach.

A council statement said: "The issue about the retention of some bank card details was identified and management action taken to address it, although at the time of audit it was noted that a small number of records remained to be removed.

"These have all since been removed and there is no evidence that the information was accessed beyond its legitimate use by the team who were collating and retaining it."

The committee heard that images of people's bank cards could be seen by "all social workers for that locality, business support and the relevant finance officers".

Lib Dem councillor Richard Kilpatrick, who sits on the audit committee, called for the matter to be referred to be referred to Information Commissioner's Office for an investigation.

He said: "I'm concerned there's a culture of not referring when they know that they've done something wrong, even though it is absolutely in the interest of the council once a mistake has been made to accept it made a cock-up and investigate it properly."

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