Leeann Shelton reports another privacy breach due to a response to a Freedom of Information request: More than 1,000 Social Security numbers belonging to Illinois Department of Corrections employees were inadvertently released in a response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The affected employees work at the Lawrence and Dixon correctional centers, Acting IDOC…
Category: Exposure
Anxiety UK signs undertaking after member data was exposed for 12 months
Anxiety UK has signed an undertaking with the Information Commissioner’s Office after personal data held within a password protected area of Anxiety UK’s website, was publically available for approximately 12 months via an internet search engine. The ICO was notified of the breach in February 2015 by Anxiety UK. Investigation revealed that the information had…
Mass. pot dispensary accidentally shares patients’ email addresses
Adam Vaccaro reports: Buying medical marijuana in Massachusetts got a little less anonymous Thursday morning, when the state’s lone pot dispensary accidentally shared some of its patients’ email addresses with other patients. State health officials are investigating. Salem’s Alternative Therapies Group sent an email addressed “Dear Patient,” to 157 email addresses. A copy of the…
NI: Security breach gives access to unknown number of people’s CVs
Northern Ireland’s Department of Employment and Learning is “urgently” investigating how users of a careers resource centre in Belfast were able to view, download and print other’s CVs. A security breach at the centre, which helps people write CVs and find employment, was uncovered by a jobseeker who found she was able to access several…
80 University of South Alabama scholarship students’ personal info leaked
Cassie Fambro reports: The University of South Alabama has corrected an issue that resulted in 80 scholarship students’ personal information leaking on the Internet, according to USA spokesman Bob Lowry. “Personal information contained on the applications included each scholarship applicant’s name, address, phone number, date of birth, names of parents, high school grades and transcripts….
IE: Data chief considered stopping use of sensitive information
Elaine Edwards reports: The Data Protection Commissioner considered telling organisations to stop allowing information such as mothers’ maiden names to be used for security questions after millions of personal records were published on a government genealogy site last year. In July last year, then commissioner Billy Hawkes threatened to take enforcement action against the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht after…