Charities are exposed to serious risk when documents are lost

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Proper management of sensitive records can be challenging, but when the documents in question relate to vulnerable individuals who are receiving care from charities or local authorities, the consequences of information falling into the wrong hands can be very damaging.  Recent cases of paper documents being lost highlight this risk.

The impending arrival of GDPR will of course impose far more severe penalties than have hitherto been possible under current data protection legislation. Among the organisations most exposed to such potential penalties are small-to-medium charities, who in many cases handle highly sensitive information about individuals. Such charities are generally staffed by dedicated and highly competent volunteers, but often they lack the experience or resources to implement processes or systems that give proper protection to the information they handle.

Converting paper documents into electronic records can be difficult, particularly if volumes are large and the documents them selves are not in good condition. However, electronic systems do provider much tighter control of information, and also provide a host of other benefits including speed of retrieval and access while away from the office or filing cabinet.

Among the key benefits of applying a highly secure electronic system such as Safe4 to the management of confidential information is that it will not only eliminate or reduce the risk of document loss, but will permit the organisation in question to achieve and maintain compliance with GDPR. This could prove to be a key safeguard in the coming years when some of the UK’s most high-profile charities have suffered enormous reputational damage and are now seeing the cancellation of direct debit donations doubling in recent weeks. Maintaining the highest possible standards in record-keeping and information management will be a valuable means for the charity to protect their most valuable asset – their donor subscribers, who provide the majority of funds to support the important work that charities carry out to assist the members of our society who are most in need of help.

In conjunction with a number of partners, Safe4 Information Management is launching an initiative to offer the charitable sector solutions that will help them not only protect their information to the highest possible standard, but also to reduce costs and improve the efficiency of their operations. Further details of this initiative will be published in the coming months, as GDPR approaches.

If you like to know more about how Safe4 can help your organisation to enhance the secure management of confidential records, please get in touch with us.

Version 5.04 of Safe4 is released

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Safe4 have released version 5.04 of the secure information delivery and storage service. This release includes a significant number of internal enhancements, and will assist with the administration and management of the service.

Users will notice changes in the way that reports and messages are handled and displayed, with more flexible options for listing and presentation. The method of PIN management has also been updated, as has the user invitation process. Further changes are in the pipeline to address the requirements of GDPR, which becomes law on 25 May 2018. It is anticipated that Safe4 will be GDPR-ready by the end of the first quarter of 2018, to ensure that customers will be fully supported in their own GDPR compliance programmes.

For more information on how Safe4 can assist your organisation to handle confidential information more securely and efficiently, as well as helping with your own GDPR compliance, please get in touch with us.

Virus checker issues led to intermittent upload failures for Safe4

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At around 9:30 GMT on Friday 26 January 2018 the Safe4 system began to experience intermittent failures when uploading files. This was displayed to users as a “rejected” message in the web user interface or an error message if using the Safe4 API.

Investigation showed that the issue was caused by an intermittent failure of the virus scanner that is used to check every file uploaded to the system. This was traced to an error in the virus signature files used by the virus checker – the updated signature files relied on a capability in the core virus software that had not yet been released. The root cause was therefore configuration control by the provider of the virus software.

Once the problem was identified by the virus team an updated set of signature files was released. Normal service of Safe4 was restored by approximately 3:30 GMT on Friday 26 January 2018.

The virus vendor has advised that they are reviewing their release processes to ensure that this situation does not recur.

All of the other functions of Safe4 were unaffected by this problem, and consequently no other activities suffered any disruption.

We would like to apologise for the inconvenience that this issue caused to our customers, and for their clients and associates.

Slow progress for GDPR across Europe

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Most EU member states are not making much progress towards preparing their own legislative position for the effective date of the General Data Protection Regulation on 25 May this year, according to an article published today. As many UK businesses are aware, the Information Commissioner’s Office has been issuing guidance and warnings on GDPR for quite some time, but as yet response across many sectors has been patchy.

We at Safe4 have already started the process of making our highly secure information delivery and storage service GDPR-ready, so that our customers can use the system with confidence, knowing that their own compliance programmes will be strongly supported. This will involve relatively minor changes to the system, and our plan is to have these adjustments ready for deployment by the end of March 2018, well in advance of the date when the Regulation comes into force.

For more information on how Safe4 can help your business to become GDPR compliant, please contact us.

Safe4 version 5.03 is released into production

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The ongoing development of the Safe4 secure information management service continues, with version 5.03 being announced and available for use today.

In addition to a series of internal enhancements, the new release now offers customers the ability to manage users through a single console interface. Safe4 customers have increasingly found it useful to offer their services through multiple provider accounts, in order to allow differential branding and nomenclature to reflect the specific business application in question. Users have hitherto been added to new vaults and provider accounts through an invitation process.  This will continue for new users, but those who already have a Safe4 account can now be added to additional vaults and providers through a new interface available to the system administrator. Similarly, removal of user accounts can now be accomplished very rapidly without having to enter each vault to which they had access.

There are many other system developments in the Safe4 product pipeline. If you would like any further information, please get in touch with us.

GDPR compliance – what will it mean for you?

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Most of us now are receiving a barrage of email relating to the need for GDPR compliance in our inboxes.  Consultants, assessors, seminar organisers, and a host of others are trying to get our attention in advance of the date when the General Data Protection Regulation comes into force in May this year.

Some of this communication is helpful, but the majority seems to be opportunistic.  It is refreshing to come across a realistic and well-considered article that highlights the simple facts about GDPR – there is no magical solution to make any organisation compliant, just the realisation that the only effective approach lies in a thorough review of the information that is being used, who uses it, how it is managed and transmitted, and what protection measures have been taken to safeguard it.

Safe4 can help to support GDPR compliance

Every organisation, of any size or structure, will have to make sure that its information management house is in order to become compliant with GDPR. No IT system can perform this service, but a compliance programme will be more successful if it is underwritten by applying technology that allows the necessary processes to be properly implemented. We at Safe4 are making some minor changes to the way the system works to make sure that it will offer full support for GDPR. But the responsibility for achieving compliance will still lie with the organisation itself, and how it manages its own activities.

We will be publishing further information about the changes that the Safe4 system will undergo in the coming months. The basic design and architecture of Safe4, as well as other factors including UK-only storage in ISO 27001-accredited data centres, full encryption of data, no reliance on email to carry confidential information, a full audit trail of all activity, and contractual arrangements under English law already provide an effective platform for ensuring best practice in the management of information.

For more information on how using Safe4 can assist your organisation to comply with GDPR, please contact us.