From the Information Commissioner’s Office: Walsall Council breached the Data Protection Act by accidentally dumping hundreds of local residents’ postal vote statements in a skip, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said today. The statements – which were disposed of in March 2011 by an external contractor on the council’s behalf – included people’s names, addresses,…
Author: Dissent
Canadians denied U.S. entry over mental illness
Sarah Bridge reports: More than a dozen Canadians have told the Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office in Toronto within the past year that they were blocked from entering the United States after their records of mental illness were shared with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Lois Kamenitz, 65, of Toronto contacted the office last fall,…
Breaches have consequences: Watchdog penalizes Hyundai Capital after data leak
A follow-up to the Hyundai Capital breach first disclosed in April. At the time, Hyundai reported that approximately 420,000 of its 1.8 million customers had their names, resident registration numbers, mobile phone numbers and email addresses compromised by hackers. Now Yonhap News reports: South Korea’s financial watchdog on Thursday decided to issue an institutional warning…
TX: Almost 15,000 students’ names, SSN and dates of birth exposed on the web since last year
Scott Lawrence reports: The superintendent of schools for Beaumont Independent School District today announced that letters are being mailed to parents of nearly 15,000 of its 19,848 students to inform them of a potential breach of data that occurred recently. According to Dr. Carrol A. Thomas, the breach concerning confidential information that was placed on…
Security Breach at MyJob.ie
Brian Honan writes: Tonight I got an email from the online recruit arm of Bond Personnel, MyJob.ie, to inform me they recently suffered a security breach and were sending me a precautionary email to change my password. While there are no details as to what information the attackers accessed or how they manage to breach MyJob.ie’s security,…
Patient Data Posted Online in Major Breach of Privacy
Kevin Sack reports: A medical privacy breach at Stanford University’s hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., led to the public posting of medical records for 20,000 emergency room patients, including names and diagnosis codes, on a commercial Web site for nearly a year, the hospital has confirmed. Since discovering the breach last month, the hospital has…