Two days after a State Farm auto insurance customer made a payment on their insurance policy over the phone, the customer called State Farm back to report that their credit card information had been misused. State Farm investigated, and one month later, on September 4, the insurer notified the Maryland Attorney General’s Office that they…
Category: Insider
MN: Judge tosses data breach suit against state
Eric Roper reports: A federal judge has dismissed a series of class action claims against the state, relating to a former Department of Natural Resources employee who allegedly snooped into thousands of drivers license records. Lawsuits against the employee are not impacted by the dismissal. Nor, reports Roper, are the more than 20 lawsuits that have been…
Belfast civil servant offered to sell secret database info to newspaper
Meet the civil servant who attempted to sell Sunday Life information from a top-secret government database — including the personal details of a local celebrity. The secrets-for-cash offer was made by Martin Cunningham — an administrative assistant based at a Belfast based Jobs and Benefits Office. The 26-year-old from Downpatrick said he could snoop the…
UK: Former Bognor police officer fined for breaching Data Protection Act
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.
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…