The Iowa Department of Human Services announced Friday that there was a breach in personal information related to some Polk County social work assessments. There are 2,042 individuals whose information was included in the breach, which happened during the assessment period of some child and dependent adult abuse cases. Letters were mailed this week notifying…
Category: Exposure
NZ: Wintec shuts web site after security breach
Libby Wilson reports: She wanted to apply for a parking permit – instead Wintec student Bronwyn Fleet got the details of people who already had. The second-year student visited the application site in the student portal in January and was astounded when a list including names, contact numbers and car registration numbers appeared on the…
UK: Loan firm ‘Buy As You View’ promises probe after papers found in street
Paul Kelly reports: Red-faced bosses have apologised after papers outlining debts owed to a high-interest loan company by South Tynesiders were found discarded in the street. Liz Garlinge, 55, was leaving her home in Honeysuckle Avenue, West Harton, South Shields, when she saw the highly sensitive document lying on her drive. She was stunned to…
UK: KCOM caught in yet ANOTHER customer privacy snafu
Kelly Fiveash reports on several breaches at KCOM that had not been previously reported on this blog: Hull-based telco KCOM has coughed to another privacy clanger – this time admitting to wrongly sharing some of its customers’ email addresses with other subscribers. But it’s unclear whether the ISP has turned itself into the Information Commissioner’s…
NZ passport email gaffe latest in series of privacy slips
Adam Bennett reports: Hundreds of passport applicants have had their email addresses shared with other applicants in another government privacy botch-up. About 400 people applying online for passports were yesterday sent an email informing them of a system outage on the Department of Internal Affairs website. However, each recipient could see the email addresses –…
EMC notifying some employees after vendor error disclosed their names and SSNs to unauthorized parties
EMC is notifying employees after an unnamed vendor’s employee mistakenly sent out an Excel file with their personal information to parties not authorized to have their personal information. The error, which occurred on January 7, occurred because a quick glance at the file did not reveal the hidden fields containing their names, SSN, and old…