ESA-private information seen by Royal mail?

[ladybird]

I have just found a post about this on another site (unrelated) and it gave this link.

http://www.bhfederation.org.uk/componen ... -post.html

Has anybody heard about it? If it is true..well, words fail me.

[Sparklingtechie]

I cannot find it on snopes or any of the other check sites. It reads real. It's also illegal to open mail not addressed to you or your spouse or dependants.

[charles47]

Hmm. Big pinch of salt required - not enough detail in the report to explain what they really mean by "mail opened", etc.

If internal mail is now contracted out to mail handlers, for example, rather than using (more expensive) Civil Servants?

[michael parker]

Well nothing really surprises me anymore,but i just wonder why postal workers have to sign a section of the official secrets act if they are not going to be monitored,and if this has some sort of official backing,then to what purpose.Could they all have been working for the News of the World.With so much information out there and up for grabs one wonders why we ever need to fill in a form again.

[Guest]

It is true, I have known about it for some time, before it became more widely known. Dare I say that if it is anything like the actual postal service it probably accounts for the number of forms which go missing? I think that the issue of confidentiality is more of a problem if you live where the mail is opened and might know the person opening the envelope containing your form.

[charles47]

It is true, I have known about it for some time, before it became more widely known. Dare I say that if it is anything like the actual postal service it probably accounts for the number of forms which go missing? I think that the issue of confidentiality is more of a problem if you live where the mail is opened and might know the person opening the envelope containing your form.

But of course, that's also the issue if you know a person who works in one of the local benefit offices.

[Guest]

Absolutely, or any number of government of local government departments where sensitive data is held, the NHS for example where research found numerous breaches of confidentiality, including nurses looking at family and neighbours' computerised medical records and windows left open where anyone could read the patient information.

[charles47]

My sister in law had swine flue at the beginning of the year. She was in a side room but her notes were in a docket outside in the corridor. Literally anyone could have read them and not been queried.

We have far more stringent arrangements than that at home, let alone at work!

[Guest]

I had an outpatient appointment at the Royal London Hospital a few years ago, the patient files were left unattended on treatment trolleys in the main entrance to the clinics and outside the consultation rooms, I could have picked up anyone's records and read them.

[poppett]

BA mail for Inverness no longer goes to their office in Church Street, but to the sorting office on Strothers Lane where I believe it is opened before it goes to Church Street.