The discovery: Patient data was stored insecurely in the region's email

Late last week, the region discovered unencrypted personal data in attachments in the Outlook email program.

Something that P4 Uppland also reported.

This is against the region's procedures due to the risk of data breaches.

- It is probably ignorance, says Anneli Kjellberg, digitization director in Region Uppsala.

According to the region, they receive approximately 800,000 emails a month, but they cannot answer how many of these contain personal data.

Right now they are working on introducing a simpler way to encrypt the emails. 

Mismanaged handling of personal data in the past

Earlier this year, Region Uppsala was fined SEK 2 million for mishandling personal data in 2019.

Is there a larger structural problem with these types of issues within the region?

- In connection with the event in 2019, an encryption function was introduced that is used today, but as I see it, we need to review the routines again.

In the clip above, you can hear Anneli Kjellberg tell more about how the discovery was made.