Labour Questions Whether Home Office Takes Security “Seriously Enough” After Anti-Terror Documents Left In Public
3 min read
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper has written to her counterpart Suella Braverman seeking reassurance that the home secretary is taking security “seriously enough” after it was revealed that sensitive documents were left in a public venue in London last year.
Writing to the home secretary, Cooper said there was a “deep and widespread concern that the Home Office is simply not getting the basics right” when it came to national security, and asked for confirmation that the department was taking “all necessary measures to keep the country safe”.
It comes after the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) issued a formal reprimand to the Home Office following reports that sensitive documents were found by staff at a central London venue and handed over to the police.
According to Civil Service World, they included two reports from the Home Office’s Extremism Analysis Unit and two copies of a report on counter-terrorism policing, which were classified as "official sensitive" and contained information deemed as "special category" under data-protection law.
The reprimand – which has been issued to the office of the secretary of state – notes that the ICO was not informed of the incident until 4 April 2022, seven months after it took place.
Organisations that suffer data breaches are required to report them to the watchdog within 72 hours of their detection.
This latest warning is the second time in a week that the Home Office has been reprimanded by the ICO, following a separate censure for failing to meet transparency and data-protection obligations.
Writing to her counterpart, Yvette Cooper asked for clarification on what measures are in place to ensure that such a breach cannot happen again and to ensure that the Home Office will follow the advice of the ICO.
"The safety and security of the British people is the most important part of the Home Secretary's role and the public must be reassured that there are no vulnerable points which could be exploited by those who seek to do us harm,” the shadow home secretary wrote.
"That is why I am asking for reassurance that the Home Secretary is taking the sensitivity of security information seriously enough and has put in place all necessary measures to keep the country safe.
"There is a deep and widespread concern that the Home Office is simply not getting the basics right and that successive Conservative Home Secretaries have failed to address this. When this has implications for security, it clearly becomes very serious."
In its reprimand of the Home Office, ICO investigators found that the department “did not have a specific sign-out process in place for the removal of ‘Official-Sensitive’ documents from its premises”.
The watchdog noted that the Home Office has already taken some “remedial steps” in light of the incident, including the introduction of unique reference numbers for sensitive documents.
They went on to recommend that the department take further action, beginning with a review of “handling instructions” for information classified at Official-Sensitive level.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman will have ultimate responsibility for implementing the recommendations – although the incident and its fallout took place during the tenure of her predecessor, Priti Patel.
Responding to the ICO reprimand, a spokesperson for the Home Office said: “The UK has one of the most robust and transparent oversight regimes for the protection of personal data and privacy anywhere in the world.
"We note the decision published by the Information Commissioner’s Office… and will take its implications into consideration. We continue to ensure that robust controls and independent oversight are in place to ensure we are fully compliant with requirements on processing of personal data.”
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