Mark Fullbrook, the IT security vendor, Cyber-Ark's European director, said that taking a data silo approach to personal data is now the best approach to allowing privileged access to information - as well as allowing the data to be shared between specific people on a carefully controlled and encrypted basis.
According to Computer Weekly, Cardiff Council has sacked a member of its staff for looking at personal CIS information on celebrities.
This was, said Fulbrook, probably an employee looking to expand their knowledge of celebrities beyond the confines of Hello magazine, but the staffer could also have sold the personal data on to a national newspaper.
As a result, he explained, the fall-out for the council could have been very bad.
"It's also quite worrying that Computer Weekly's research has revealed that staff at 34 local authorities incorrectly accessed data on the CIS between 2006 and 2009, but that only nine members of staff were actually dismissed", he said.
Clearly, added Fullbrook, these personal data incidents are 34 too many, but given the fact that local government employs 1.7 million full-time employees - one in 35 of the UK's population - rogue employee actions of this nature are inevitable.
This is why, he added, it is essential that effective privileged controls be placed on the viewing and exchange of CIS and personal data by local authorities across the UK, he explained.
And, he said, the technology required - centering on highly secure storage and privileged email-driven exchange of the data - now exists to control access to the large databases containing personal data such as the CIS.
"Our own Inter-Business Vault technology is a prime example of this, as it allows privileged access to the data, as well as allowing encrypted and auditable sharing of data between nominated members of staff as and when required", he said.
"There is simply no excuse for the UK's 430-plus local authorities not to use the technology that is available. And there are 1.7 million reasons for this", he added.