More than £700,000 will be spent in a bid to stop sensitive data about Essex residents from falling into the wrong hands.
Following a series of high-profile cases nationwide, Essex County Council has agreed to buy software which will encrypt information held on hard disks and removable media, such as laptops, over the next three months.
The software costs about £237,000, while maintenance, support and other costs will bring the total spend to £723,000 over the next 45 months.
A report about the decision, authorised by council leader Lord Hanningfield, states that in the event that a laptop or memory stick is lost, data on it will be protected by “industry standard encryption,” so whoever holds the hardware would struggle to access information on it.
- More in today's Gazette
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