Not everyone thinks the ICO made a good decision in the first fines it levied for violation of the Data Protection Act. Jason Stampers writes, in part: But anyone hoping that the ICO was going to come down hard on such breaches will be dismayed. Since the ICO now has the power to levy fines…
Category: Commentaries and Analyses
DPA fines – why ICO got it right
Stewart Room writes about the first fines imposed by the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office: I’ve heard two arguments that are critical of the ICO fines. They go something like this: (1) the fines were too low and (2) it’s wrong of ICO to fine a Local Authority when it didn’t fine Google. Let me try…
Liberty Coalition gives University of Hawaii an ‘F’ for data breaches
In a news report headlined, “Data breaches earn UH an ‘F’,” Gordon Y.K. Pang reports: A national organization has given the University of Hawaii a grade of “F” for online security breaches that exposed Social Security numbers and other sensitive information in nearly 260,000 records. The Liberty Coalition, a nonprofit civil liberties watchdog group, yesterday…
Security flaws found in Nova Scotia government
Keith Doucette reports: Security weaknesses in computer systems operated by Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations place a wide range of personal and business information at risk, the auditor general concluded in a report released Wednesday. Jacques Lapointe said he found problems in the way passwords are controlled, computer accounts are set up and security…
Verizon breach disclosure web launched
Last week I posted a news item that Verizon was creating a web site where breaches could be reported anonymously. U.K. lawyer Stewart Room raises an interesting concern about using the site: This is a fascinating concept, but from a legal perspective it is potentially fraught with difficulty for those organisations whose employees decide to…
Why data breach costs are really going down
Rafael Ruffolo reports: A new study by Telus Corp. reveals that while Canadian organizations reported 29 per cent more data breaches in 2010 versus the previous year, the annual cost of these security issues has dropped substantially. The telecom giant’s report, which polled 500 business and IT professionals, was part of a joint study with…