Leo King reports: Insurance giant Zurich has lost the sensitive personal account details of 641,000 customers held on backup tape. The company admitted the tape had been missing for over a year in South Africa, after it was lost en route to a secure storage unit in August 2008. But it has only just noticed…
Category: Non-U.S.
Insurer Zurich loses customers’ details
Nick Collins of the Telegraph reports: Insurance giant Zurich has admitted losing the personal details of 51,000 British customers. The group said the backup tape was lost during a routine transfer to a data storage centre in South Africa in August last year. It said it had no evidence that the data had been misused,…
Hydro customer info used in scam
Chris Kitching reports: Police are investigating after a woman got a job at Manitoba Hydro using a stolen identity and used her position to access the personal information of more than 900 customers and take out fraudulent credit cards. The employee used customers’ names and other information to apply for 45 credit cards without the…
IE: Data breach consultation paper now out
TJ McIntyre writes on IT Law in Ireland: The Data Protection Review Group has now published a consultation paper (pdf) on reforming Irish law on notification of data breaches. Pages 33-38 on possible regulatory options are particularly useful, though the group is clearly hampered by the fact that any national reforms might soon be out…
Two major German websites report data theft
AP/Reuters reports two data breaches out of Germany: SchülerVZ, an online forum for German teenagers and high school students, has said it has identified the person it suspects of stealing the data, which include the name, age, school, gender, and photo of thousands of users. A more serious breach involves the names, client numbers, addresses,…
UK: Private medical records for sale
Jo Macfarlane reports: The confidential medical records of patients treated at one of Britain’s top private hospitals have been illegally sold to undercover investigators. Hundreds of files containing intimate details of patients’ conditions, home addresses and dates of birth are being offered for as little as £4 each. The files were sold by two men…