EXCLUSIVE: Brent Council suspends Veolia's management of confidential waste after data breach

Wembley Matters contacted Brent Council after a Coulsdon resident emailed:

 I'm a big fan of your blog Wembley Matters. I thought you might be interested in the below......

A Veolia lorry has driven through Brighton Road in Coulsdon (CR5 2BE), leaving confidential letters sown all over the street that look to be from Brent Council........

All sorts involved, letters containing full names addresses etc and some very confidential matters.

Many of these letters have ended up in people's gardens. Veolia and the council have been round picking them up since monday

Surely this is a serious breach of the DPO laws?? 

I didn't manage to get a picture unfortunately, but if you speak to some residents you might hear some interesting tales... you may also wish to ask the council about it?

Of course I did. 

I have established that Veolia transports Brent Council confidential waste to Croydon for shredding in purpose designed confidential information bags. This is also done by other nearby councils contracted to Veolia.

I understand that about 700 items were involved and Brent Council has been collecting them and informing those affected. Some of the items in the gutter were in a poor state and unreadable.

Brent Council told Wembley Matters that this collection and contacting of residents took time but only a small proportion of the 700 items were confidential.

 

A Brent Council spokesperson said:  

 

We sincerely apologise to the Brent residents affected by the data breach by our waste contractor Veolia. 

 

As soon as we were made aware of the error we took immediate steps, together with our contractor, to recover the information. Following several sweeps of the area where the loss took place, we have done everything possible to safely recover the information. We are notifying relevant parties, where appropriate, and the incident has been reported to the Information Commissioner.

 

We are working closely with Veolia and have suspended their management of the council’s confidential waste for the time being. A full investigation is now taking place into how this incident happened so lessons can be learned and more robust measures put in place to ensure this can never happen again.

 

A Veolia spokesperson said:

We would like to apologise to all residents who have been affected by this unacceptable incident and have taken immediate action to recover and secure any confidential waste.
 

We take this matter extremely seriously and are conducting an urgent investigation into the circumstances of this incident and will continue to work closely with Brent Council in order to limit any impact.

 

William Relton, Coordinator of Brent Green Party commented:

I understand that Veolia's contract with Brent is coming to an end soon. I urge Brent Council not to renew the contract and take all waste disposal and recycling, particularly items of a confidential matter, back in-house. Why any organisation would pay another commercial organisation to shred its confidential materials is quite beyond me.

Wembley Matters will report the result of any investigation by the Information Commissioner and any measures or fines imposed as a result of this breach.