Julie Hayes reports: North Yorkshire police officers and staff breached data protection laws 39 times in the past three years, the force has revealed. In response to a Freedom of Information request, North Yorkshire Police said the incidents included officers and staff conducting checks of private telephone numbers, obtaining personal data without consent, accessing personal…
Author: Dissent
Sensitive Scottish court records discovered at recycling bank
A press release from the UK ICO: The Scottish Court Service breached the Data Protection Act by failing to take sufficient steps to prevent court documents containing sensitive personal details being accidentally disposed of at a local recycling bank in Glasgow, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said today. The ICO was first made aware of…
(update) NYC SSA breach involved more than SSN
As an update to the breach involving a subcontractor working in the NYC Social Security Administration Office of Temporary Disability Assistance, other news sources such as WTEN report the name of the individual arrested in the case: Evan Kane of Waterford, New York. It also appears that in addition to 15,000 Social Security Numbers, other…
Why Are Health Data Leaking Online? Bad Software, Study Says
Jennifer Valentino-DeVries reports: Hard-to-use software is behind the leakage of sensitive health data online, according to a study by Dartmouth researchers published in December. Health documents with sensitive patient information can be found in “peer-to-peer” networks, which people typically use to share music files and the like. The programs used to navigate these networks often…
DHS goes after Vietnamese hackers, identity thieves
Robert McMillan reports more an “Operation eMule” arrest previously reported by Dan Browning of the Star Tribune and mentioned on this site previously. […] The law enforcement operation, run out of ICE’s Cyber Crimes Center in Washington, D.C., has been investigating the Vietnamese crime ring since Sept. 2009 in an action called Operation eMule, according…
DoD still working to tighten SSN controls
Jared Serbu reports: The Defense Department is continuing its effort to move away from the use of Social Security numbers to identify service members, although full implementation of an alternative system of ID numbers designed to decrease identity theft will not happen until 2012. Last week, the Navy closed down one potential fraud magnet. Prior…