A data breach whistleblower said NatWest files under her bed contain current customer details, contrary to the bank’s claims that it is historic information.
The former worker at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), part of NatWest Group, has been in dispute with the bank for more than a decade over the confidential customer data files stored in her home.
To test NatWest’s assertion that the customer data is historical, the former staffer, now a registered data controller, claimed she has established that some of the data belongs to current customers.
In 2006, the data was sent to the worker’s home as part of a work arrangement – in breach of data protection rules. The worker was given the opportunity to work from home and, on the bank’s instructions, used customer banking information to help her generate mortgage and loans business. Over three years, she received thousands of paper documents, many of which – about 1,600 – are still stored in her home.
When the worker became concerned that the arrangement could breach data protection rules, she put everything in writing to her manager and inadvertently blew the whistle on the bank’s lax data security practices.
She was advised to obtain a receipt from the bank before handing back the information to protect her own position from possible future litigation.
The former worker was sacked by the bank in 2009 and has been calling on the bank to collect the files ever since.
In 2012, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)...
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