Blue bin-it!

It’s a story that we see in the news all too often – confidential or sensitive documents lost or stolen, people’s details being leaked and shared, and a huge fallout in the public eye for the individuals or companies involved. At best it causes embarrassment; at worst, serious legal action can be taken.

In the ambulance service we handle sensitive or person identifiable information every single day. So it’s important that we all know how to look after that information, and how we can safely dispose of it.

Our confidential waste-paper bins are the large blue ones with a lock on, so they can’t be opened once you’ve put something inside. They have to be kept inside a Trust building and locked at all times, and only senior locality managers should have a key to open them.

Under the Data Protection Act it’s a legal requirement that any data which would identify an individual is confidentially and securely destroyed. So any person identifiable information that you need to dispose of needs to go into one of these secure blue bins.

If you aren’t sure of what counts as person identifiable information, you can read more on the information governance pages on East24.

Published 1st April 2015