The Federal Trade Commission has charged a mortgage broker with discarding consumers’ tax returns, credit reports, and other sensitive personal and financial information in an unsecured dumpster, in violation of federal law. According to the FTC, in December 2006, approximately 40 boxes containing consumer records were found in a publicly-accessible dumpster. The records included tax…
Category: Exposure
MO: Students’ information leaked
Didi Tang reports: Sensitive personal information — including Social Security numbers — for 565 foreign students at MSU was leaked this month when a university office sent an e-mail message with the data inadvertently attached. The school is investigating the incident and will contact all international students, offering answers and options to guard against identity…
Move Over, Client #9
Brain Krebs reports: A popular Web site that helps connect young women with so-called “Sugar Daddies” has fixed a major security hole that – apparently since its inception two years ago — allowed anyone with a Web browser to view the private negotiations between site members. […] Seekingarrangement.com, an adult social networking site that boasts…
Ca: Company sends criminal record to total stranger in Simcoe
Mark Bonokoski reports: When the brown manila envelope arrived in the mail the other day at his home in rural Simcoe — the Toronto sender’s name discreetly reading P. Canada — Dave Eberly assumed his pardon had finally come through. […] And when that manila envelope arrived in the mail, Eberly thought it would be…
UK: Authority’s sorry for e-mail privacy gaffe
Derby City Council has come under fire for breaching privacy laws by sending out a note containing the e-mail addresses of 50 council tax-payers. The error came to light when Julian Boardman, a web manager, received a electronic notice on Thursday morning informing him that his council tax payment was due. Later that day, a…
TX: Dumpster diver finds old medical records
Jessica Willey reports: It is information no one would want scattered on papers in a parking lot, much less thrown away in a dumpster for anyone to find. Medical records were found behind a 99 Cents store in southwest Houston putting people’s identities at risk. “This has got Social Security numbers, Medicare numbers. That’s pretty…