Information Commissioner's Office calls on Brent Council to take measures to avoid future data protection breaches

Following the data breach by Brent Council when e-mail addresses of residents were sent to recipients of a message about a meeting acomplaint was made to the Information Commissioner's Office.

This is their response:

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You have contacted us to complain that Brent Council appears to have inappropriately disclosed your personal data.

Summary of case

In this case, your email address was cc’d into an email and disclosed to other individuals.

It would therefore appear that Brent Council has breached the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA).

Role of the ICO

Our role is to ensure that organisations follow the Data Protection Act 1998 properly. If things go wrong we will provide advice and ask the organisation to try to put things right. Our overall aim is to improve the way organisations handle personal information.

Next steps

Although it appears that Brent Council has breached the DPA, it would seem that this is down to human error, and the ICO does not consider it necessary to take any further regulatory action at this stage.

However, we have contacted the council to advise them of our view. We have also asked that they take the following measures to ensure that similar breaches do not occur in the future:

• To remind all staff to take extra due care and attention when sending emails by double checking addresses and only sending out relevant and appropriate information in future.
• To use the bcc feature when sending emails to numerous individuals with external email domains, to ensure that email addresses are not disclosed to other parties.
• To check that all staff have undertaken data protection training within the last 12 months.
• Inform any other parties whose data may have been inappropriately disclosed in this case.

Although we do not intend to take any further regulatory action on this case, this will remain on our systems to help us build a picture of Brent Council’s information rights handling.

We will continue to monitor the council’s data protection practices, and should any regulatory action be taken against them in the future, your case may form a part of our intelligence against them. You can view any regulatory action we do take on our website, using the following link: https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/

Brent CEO's advice to Mayor over John Duffy Special Council Meeting request published

A supplementary report has been published for Thursday's Standards Committee meeting which contains the correspondence between the Mayor and Carolyn Downs (Brent CEO) about John Duffy's request for a Special Council Meeting about fire risk in Brent buildings post Grenfell:

223 bus route link to Harrow likely to terminate at Northwick Park in future

A Wembley Matters reader has been in contact over proposals to stop the 223 bus at Northwick Park rather than Harrow Bus Station. The consultation has now closed.

She wrote:

I had sent them (TfL) a long message detailing the effects the cut would have on older residents, on children travelling to school in Harrow and all sorts of people who have difficulty getting their shopping on and off the bus or who would feel intimidated standing around Northwick Park in the dark or cold weather.  Apparently none of  this is of any interest to TFL.

The consultation was a sham because they didn't tell anyone about it.  There is no information on buses or in the bus station, so most people are completely ignorant of the proposals.

TfL replied:

Thanks for the contacting us on 31 August, about the route change proposal to the 223 buses.
I’m sorry that you are unhappy with our proposal to terminate the buses at Northwick Park Hospital instead of Harrow Bus Station. It’s understandable that many of the customers rely on the direct service for Harrow, and this would result in journeys being disrupted. 

Harrow bus station and Northwick Park Hospital will continue to be linked by routes 182, 483, 186, H9, H10 and H14 (where the Hopper Fare can be applied). Curtailing the 223 at Northwick Park Hospital will also create the free space for new route X140 to stop and stand at Harrow bus station. 

These changes are in keeping with the opening of the Elizabeth line next year, which will change how customers travel around the capital.

Clean air for Brent - residents' questions answered

Clean Air for Brent LINK have published the first batch of answers to questions asked by the public at its meeting held at the Civic Centre in July.

The answers are below. Click on the bottom right side square to enlarge.

When was American Football first played at Wembley?

Guest post by local historian Philip Grant

Sunday sees the Jacksonville Jaguars play one of their regular NFL “home” games at Wembley Stadium, this season against the Baltimore Ravens. But when was American football first played at Wembley Stadium?

There has been at least one NFL “International Series” game played at Wembley each year since the new stadium opened in 2007. Many people would claim that the first American football match played in the old stadium was in 1983, when Minnesota Vikings beat the St. Louis Cardinals 28-10 in an NFL Global Cup game.

The FA’s Wembley website takes the first match at the old stadium back to 1952. Then the venue played host to the final of the U.S. Airforce in Europe football championships, with the Fuerstenfeldbruck Eagles beating the Burtonwood Bullets 27-6. However, there is now evidence that the history of American football at Wembley goes back even further, to the Second World War.

When Quintain were carrying out their major refurbishment of the Wembley Arena about ten years ago, some clips of old “newsreel” type film were discovered. These had probably been collected by the former Wembley Stadium company, which was set up by Arthur Elvin in 1927, to buy the Empire Stadium and save it from demolition after the British Empire Exhibition.

During World War Two, Elvin used the stadium to host many charity and sports events for the armed services, and was knighted for this in 1946. Among the old film clips is footage of an American Football game, with U.S. and other service men and women in the crowd, as well as local residents. There are no details of the date (probably in 1943 or 1944) or which teams were playing. Here are a couple of grainy “stills” from the film, which help to provide a taste of the occasion.

American football was not the only U.S. sport that Wembley Stadium hosted during the war. There are records of a baseball game played there in 1943 between teams representing the U.S. Air Force and U.S. ground forces stationed in England, in preparation for the invasion of Europe the following year. There are clips of film showing that game, including the players being introduced to Clementine Churchill, the Prime Minister’s wife, who was guest of honour at the event. Here is a baseball “still” for fans of that sport, and of our local history.

Hear Rashid Nix on Crisis in the Community - Stonebridge Hub tonight

Tonight at the Stonebridge Centre Green Activist Rashid Nix is speaking about Crisis in the Community, as part of The Mind Cafe's Black Mental Health Matters Event.

Born and bred in South London, Rashid Nix's background in housing activism and youth mentoring represents a fresh perspective on London's issues. Rashid is down to earth and one of The Green Party's most engaging speakers, so if you can get there tonight (from 6.30pm) - entry is free.

The Stonebridge Centre.
Address. The Hub, 6 Hillside, Stonebridge, London, NW10 8BN

Preston Library 60s Film Night Saturday 30th September

African soldiers of the Great War - Kingsbury Library Sept 26th