The Bognor Regis Observer reports a former police office officer assigned to the Bognor Regis Police Station has been convicted of illegally accessing Sussex Police computers to get information on acquaintances. Thomas Grant pleaded guilty to breaching the Data Protection Act and was fined £800.
Category: Government Sector
NZ hat trick: EQC reports its third breach this year
Rebecca Quilliam reports: The Earthquake Commission has admitted to another breach of privacy after information on up to 260 claimants was sent to the wrong customers. Its chief executive Ian Simpson has launched an inquiry into how the information ended up on a letter that was sent to some clients. One side of the letter…
West Yorkshire Police: Cops rapped for snooping
Stuart Robinson reports that in the past two years, the West Yorkshire Police have opened 141 investigations into staff snooping and misuse of the police confidential database. The data, obtained under freedom of information requests filed by the paper, revealed that 90 involved police officers while 51 looked into the conduct of police staff. The…
MN: Lawsuit says state license database abused, often for political reasons
Tesla Rodriquez reports: State Rep. Steve Drazkowski is one of 18 plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed Thursday that claims employees from Wabasha and Winona counties, the city of Winona and nearly 50 other counties and cities illegally accessed personal information hundreds of times. The lawsuit claims that an unknown number of state employees used the…
Errant e-mail creates security breach at MNsure
Jackie Crosby reports: A MNsure employee accidentally sent an e-mail file to an Apple Valley insurance broker’s office on Thursday that contained Social Security numbers, names, business addresses and other identifying information on more than 2,400 insurance agents. An official at MNsure, the state’s new online health insurance exchange, acknowledged it had mishandled private data. . Read…
Follow-up: Utah Department of Health hack did not result in ID theft
Marjorie Cortez reports that the massive Utah Department of Health hack in 2012 that compromised personal information of 780,000 Utahns has not been linked to any cases of identify theft: Patton said there were 37 incidents in which people raised questions whether the breach was tied to identity theft. That was later winnowed down to four…