Government Department E-Services Website Breach (2020-03-25)

Summary

This is a published case summary from the Cayman Islands Ombudsman describing an informally resolved data protection complaint, not a rule or enforcement notice with ongoing legal force. It documents how a government department handled a data breach on one of its e-services websites.

• What happened: A local law firm employee discovered they could view email addresses of other users on a government e-services website; 127 email addresses were exposed, many tied to company roles rather than individuals.
• Department's response: The department was notified immediately by the law firm and made changes to the website to prevent recurrence.
• Ombudsman's finding: After reviewing the remedial steps, the Ombudsman found no evidence of prejudice to affected individuals' rights and closed the case informally without issuing a formal enforcement notice.

As a closed informal resolution with no enforcement notice, this summary illustrates the Ombudsman's approach to minor data breaches but does not itself create new binding requirements.

Applies to

government departments