Major data breach how should i handle it?

[Wasafatmum42]

I was handed an envelope opened and had been in circulation since December 2017 and I was horrified to find it contained all my personal details all my health notes and dispute letters with my managers since 2005. Where should I begin?

Gather evidence and Report to your organisation’s data protection officer

Who gave it to you. Who was it addessed to.

it wasn't addressed to a specific person but the person who sent it was supposed to send it to my matron , which meant anyone could open it and read the file

Were the personal data relevant to whatever dispute you had going on like if you were claiming you needed a certain type of social housing due to health issues and that your housing manager had been unsympathetic? how did the info end up in this envelope did you put the info in there?

It was handed to me by the ward receptionist she found the opened envelope in her mail tray

I dont understand, who gave it to you, do you know who it is from. Did someone just find it. The nhs take data protection very seriously.

Do you work in the hospital or are you a patient?

Thats awful, you need to find out how it ended up in her tray, who sent it, who it was supposed to go to, who opened it, who put it in the envelope and then report a data breach. I bet someone just thought it was patients notes to be filed or something similar, that doesn't make it right though.

folder contained my letters regarding my disputes about working hours my doctor`s letters regarding my depression when I lost some members of my family stuff I wanted to forget it all came flooding back , I am normally a bubbling strong person but the fact that my collegues might know about my darkest moments in my life is not nice at all

Is this a multi-use internal envelope? Who was the last person it was sent to?

I work in the hospital

Agree with Dr find out who it came from, who it was going to. I'd bevremoving it from work premises also, keep it safe.

I gather the receptionist thought it was for you not about you type thing and that's why she gave it to you?

You can speak to your line manager then contact the data protection officer or security, you will be able to find out on the intranet who is in charge of data security.

Is it one of these envelopes? They are not in breach if someone else has opened it I don't think. It is the person who has opened it that is in breach of policy I would expect. Those envelopes are meant to be used internally and other employees should know not to open it unless it has their name on it.

this is the thing it wasn't addressed to a specific person it was in a normal brown evenlope and not in the multi use internal envelope which we are supposed to use.

no they didn't use these envelopes they use a large normal brown envelope which unfortunately I cannot trace where it has been since December 2017 that`s the date on the note enclosed in the envelope .

If you work in a hospital you should know what to do in an IG breach!

Report the incident to your information governance department, contact the Caldicott guardian or data protection officer. The details of these people will be available for your trust. They will deal with it for you and investigate the breach of confidentiality and privacy.

Your Caldicot guardian and your union.

Thank you very much everyone I feel better now just by talking about it and first thing tomorrow when I get into work I will be ringing the data protection officer I will update you

Is there a note inside it, maybe someone found it, knew it was private so put it in an envelope, let your data people sort it out.

What happened OP?

Update?

Hello ladies i am sorry for taking a long time to update you all my case is now under investigation by my manager and the information governance officer because there was a confidentiality breach .

Thank you all for the excellent advice

YayaMarie, I've noticed you've popped up on numerous threads and mention that site every time. It sounds like you're promoting which isn't allowed on here.