Caroline Alphonso reports: Elections Ontario ignored security measures and went right back to using memory sticks without enabling the encryption software just days after personal information of as many as 2.4 million voters – contained on two USB keys without the necessary safeguards – vanished from one of its warehouses, the province’s privacy commissioner charged….
Category: Lost or Missing
Elections Ontario breach update
Two memory sticks with some information on voters registered with Elections Ontario are missing because personnel did not follow protocol. Earliest reports on the breach involving Elections Ontario said that the data were encrypted. Later reports are now saying that the data were NOT encrypted (see official press statement) and that up to 2.4 million may…
Elections Ontario reveals privacy breach of voter data (updated)
From CBC News: Elections Ontario has discovered a privacy breach that involves the personal information of voters in up to 24 provincial ridings. CBC News has learned that memory sticks containing personal information about voters have gone missing from the office of the chief electoral officer for Ontario. The information on the missing memory sticks…
AU: Did Stay Smart Online’s contractor lose your data?
Oops. A follower on Twitter DM’d me a link to this breach notification from Stay Smart Online, an initiative of the AU government: Notification of Subscriber Data Loss Dear Subscriber We are writing to notify you that the Department has been advised by a former external contractor that a DVD which included information provided by…
UK: Welcome Financial Services Limited Fined £150,000 After Backup Tapes With Customer Contact Info Lost
From the Information Commissioner’s Office: Organisations are learning the hard way of the consequences of mishandling people’s information – and others need to heed the lessons the Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, warned today at the launch of the ICO’s 2011/12 annual report. The Commissioner’s comments came as the ICO imposed a civil monetary penalty (CMP) of…
UK: Data breach exposed as council launches new policy
Ouch. Information Age reports: A data breach at Dumfries and Galloway Council was reported just hours after the council announced a new data protection policy. The Scottish local council announced yesterday that it had approved a new data protection policy, having suffered two significant data breaches last year. In one incident, salary information about 9,000…