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Following my enquiry about the use of protective markings in local authorities, of the responses received:
- 6 local authorities in England use the GPMS
- 1 uses its own system of Sensitive, Protect, Restricted.
1 local authority in Scotland uses its own system of Public, Internal / Unclassified, Restricted and Confidential in which Restricted equates to GPMS Protect and Confidential to GPMS Restricted.
The Scottish Information Security Group (including all 32 Scottish Local Authorities) has discussed protective marking. To quote from the chair (Cathie Frasier):
“I would say that 1 has partly adopted the GPMS. The rest of us haven't as the terms don't match our business, we are orientated more towards DPA, business data, IL2 and limited IL3 protection. ….. A lot of us work with classification titles and impact levels though, so we could have Restricted IL2, Restricted IL3 which would determine the strictness of the handling controls etc.”
Conclusion: no consensus. Perhaps we can deduce a leaning towards GPMS in England and Impact Levels + own classification titles in Scotland. From my experience I would guess that most are not using markings yet, perhaps using Confidential in a loose way for employee information and social care files.
In view of the increasing need to share information with the NHS and voluntary sector and the information assurance risks attached to that might I suggest that whichever scheme is used, the marking is prefixed accordingly e.g. ‘GPMS Restricted’? And that when sharing information with the NHS we add NHS markings e.g. ‘GPMS Restricted : NHS Confidential’?
Best Regards
Alison
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Alison Gibney
Deputy Managing Director
Cimtech, Innovation Centre, College Lane, University of Hertfordshire,
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