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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Universal credit administration  →  Thread

GDPR and storing login credentials again

Dan_Manville
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Mental health & welfare rights service - Wolverhampton City Council

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Yes, I know, we’ve done this to death but some folk have done a lot of work on this and I am looking at it through a different lens.

What about Supported Housing providers? If they are providing a service in peoples’ homes could they store a person’s login credentials?

ClairemHodgson
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Dan Manville - 01 May 2018 12:45 PM

Yes, I know, we’ve done this to death but some folk have done a lot of work on this and I am looking at it through a different lens.

What about Supported Housing providers? If they are providing a service in peoples’ homes could they store a person’s login credentials?

surely the answer is as before.

no.

Dan_Manville
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ClairemHodgson - 01 May 2018 01:43 PM

surely the answer is as before.

no.

Is there a distinction where an org is providing a service in a person’s home?

ClairemHodgson
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i don’t see why it would be. 

it’s one thing if the person receiving the service is storing their own credentials on their own device.

I can’t see how it would be appropriate (or necessary) for a service provider to store the person served’s info ....

same thoughts as before….

HB Anorak
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Just thinking out loud here ... so you store a service user’s credentials in good faith for reasons that seem legitimate to you and him/her. What’s the worst that can happen? If you get in trouble who is the complainant and what are they aggrieved about? Perhaps a family member who has an axe to grind?

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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HB Anorak - 01 May 2018 04:29 PM

What’s the worst that can happen?

Don’t know if you’ve had a chance to read the Secret Barrister book, Stories of the Law and How It’s Broken but I’d say there’s a entirely reasonable, and quite scary, chance you could end up on a criminal charge for alleged fraud or theft or something similar, and it’s far from clear how you’d be dealt with in the criminal courts.

If you have access to someone’s personal account and something happens to said account for unaccounted reasons, which we know happens with UC journals, why is your client going to trust you? Alternatively, some enterprising cove might just decide to rinse the account that they’ve managed to secure log-in details for and then clear off? Who knows?

Unfortunately, it’s a nasty world we live in. Scams and scammers abound. And there are different levels of liability, depending on what you’ve been asked, or instructed, to do. And there are formal options like appointees and deputies, notwithstanding the other problems already highlighted elsewhere.

[ Edited: 1 May 2018 at 08:55 pm by Paul_Treloar_AgeUK ]
ClairemHodgson
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relatedly, there are no doubt already family members of people without capacity or whatever already doing that, and storing up trouble for themselves/their relative going forward.

as well all know, this needs the DWP to pull it’s finger out and address the actual issues, rather than spouting platitudes and putting its head in the sand.

it would be interesting to see what the CoP says as and when such a case gets there (as it will…..)