Freedom of information requests are useful tools for uncovering breaches. Dan Grimmer reports on what one such investigation revealed:

Personal information about some of the most vulnerable people in the region has been lost, misused or mistakenly shared because of a string of blunders at local councils, new statistics have shown.

The catalogue of mistakes included a document containing confidential information about a Norfolk child in care being found in a street, while details of vulnerable elderly people in care in Cambridgeshire had to be retrieved from a bin.

A number of investigations are still underway at Norfolk County Council after “sensitive” information was “released inappropriately”, while Cambridgeshire County Council accidentally sent letters meant for a psychologist to the parents of the person the letters were about.

Read more about what the FOI inquiry revealed on EDP 24.