Following a data protection breach by a social worker, an investigation into Portsmouth children’s social care has been launched we can reveal.

It is believed that the newly qualified social worker was behind on her work and was rushed to complete a child protection assessment, failing to remove sensitive data before handing it over to the third party involved in the case.

The data protection breach was disclosed to a third party during a child protection assessment, which included information about a family member’s sexual abuse as a child, as well as other personal data about other family members.

According to an anonymous source, “the issue was raised with the social worker and her manager back in April, which was ignored by both the manager and the social worker in the case and failed to inform senior management regarding the breach.

After numerous attempts to contact the complaints compliance team and not receiving a response, a written letter was handed into the front office of Portsmouth City Council, and as seen in the letter, it failed to reach the dedicated department until it was finally emailed to a higher department after being lost,” the letter says.

“We eventually received a response to the complaint, but we are still dissatisfied, so we are taking it to independent bodies to be investigated further; I find it shocking that such a massive breach of confidentiality can be swept under the rug; something needs to be done.”

“We have since notified the Information Commissioner’s Office and the Human Rights Committee in the hope that they will thoroughly investigate the issues as we believe the council will not publish any findings raised in the breach.”

Portsmouth City Council was contacted for comment on the data breach but did not respond to any communication attempts at the time of publication.