The Scottish Children's Reporter Administration (SCRA) has been lambasted by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for breaching the Data Protection Act.

The SCRA twice failed to keep children’s sensitive information safe. The first breach was occurred in September 2010, when it mistakenly left nine case files in a filing cabinet that it sold off to a second-hand furniture shop as a part of office refurbishment.

The cabinet was supposed to be destroyed in stead of sold off. The files were found by a person who had purchased the cabinet from a second-hand store. The files were containing children’s names, dates of birth, social reports and all that.

The second breach, which occurred four months later in January 2011, saw documents containing sensitive information about the physical abuse of a child and the details of witnesses emailed to the wrong address.

In both incidents, the personal information that was compromised related to children, and the data breaches occurred due to human errors which could easily have been avoided.

Ken Macdonald, ICO assistant commissioner for Scotland, said that in both cases the sensitive information was luckily not circulated widely and the SCRA has since taken the required action to make sure that the personal details it handles is kept safe & secure.