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UK: Man claims hard drive bought at car boot sale contained personal data from West Cheshire College

Posted on July 26, 2012 by Dissent

Carmella de Lucia reports:

A computer hard drive allegedly loaded with more than 50,000 personal details of students and tutors from West Cheshire College was sold at a hospital car boot sale.

The discovery was made by a shocked Pioneer reader who bought the second-hand computer tower and hard drive for £5 from a sale at the Countess of Chester Hospital on May 13.

Read more on Ellesmere Port Pioneer.

There seems to be a controversy over what was on the drive.  According to the individual who found it, it contained “names, dates of birth, emails, course details, exam results, work timetables and even photographs of students.”  But the college disputes the extent of the breach:

However, West Cheshire College have denied there was any sensitive information on the hard drive, and said in a statement: “We conducted an investigation as to the contents of the hard disk and test dates including names and dates of births of less than 60 students were found on the disk with no further relevant information.

The person who acquired the drive made a backup copy of it and is turning it over to the ICO for investigation. If the college turns out to be misrepresenting the scope of the breach, that shouldn’t sit well with the ICO.

Via AlertBoot

Related posts:

  • Penn State College of Engineering hacked; China suspected in at least one attack (updated)
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Category: Breach IncidentsEducation SectorExposureNon-U.S.

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