Municipality Takes Immediate Action Following NOS Investigation into Personal Data
The NOS reported today on an investigation into municipalities that failed to adequately anonymize personal data before publishing documents online. In Voorschoten, one document was identified in which this was the case. The municipality immediately took steps to correct the error and prevent it from happening again.
A document published online in 2020 contained the personal data of the three board members of the Voorschoten Social Assistance Fund Foundation. It was an appendix to an amendment to the articles of incorporation, which included, among other things, the names, addresses, dates of birth, and passport numbers of the board members.
Particularly annoying
The municipality finds this particularly upsetting for the officials involved. As soon as it was notified by the VNG’s information security service, it took the document offline. Fortunately, there are no indications that the data was actually misused, but the municipality is taking the incident very seriously.
Data Breach Report
The municipality has personally informed the directors. It is also reporting the data breach to the Dutch Data Protection Authority. Furthermore, the municipality will do everything in its power to determine the cause and any potential consequences of this incident, and will explore ways to review all published documents for personal data.