Mark Ballard of The Inquirer reports that one Glasgow City Council worker was fired and another resigned before he could be fired after they were caught snooping into the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Customer Information Systems (CIS) database. The database forms the core of the government’s identity card scheme and contains 85 million…
Category: Non-U.S.
NZ: Police investigate alleged leak from DNA database
Police are investigating a claim an Environmental Science and Research worker has made an “inappropriate disclosure” from the national DNA profile databank. ESR said today a criminal investigation had started. “A staff member has been suspended pending the outcome of the police and internal investigations,” a spokeswoman said. The alleged security breach was the first…
Government laptops stolen in Belfast
UTV News reports: An urgent investigation has been launched into what material was taken from the corporate human resources offices over the weekend. All the machines were password-protected, marked and serial numbers recorded. Detectives have been called in. A spokesman for the Department of Finance and Personnel said: “In view of the nature of corporate…
NHS Scotland loses patients’ medical history data
Computing.co.uk reports: The Scottish NHS has admitted to the loss of medical histories for 137 patients that were stored on a memory stick, in contravention of data protection rules. The admission comes just days after the Scottish parliament published a report recommending the devolved government should be more proactive ensuring compliance with security standards. Police…
AU: Stolen credit data published in blog
From The Australian: Victorian police are investigating a massive identity fraud involving the personal details of thousands of Australians that have been available on a blog site for more than a month. The data, discovered by The Australian, includes thousands of Visa, Mastercard and American Express numbers, including expiry dates, together with home addresses, phone…
UK: Lost laptop exposes thousands of pension records
John Leyden of The Register reports on the latest data protection cockup: A lost laptop containing the personal data of 109,000 Pensions Trust’s members has sparked the latest in a growing list of information security breach alerts. The missing machine was stolen from the offices of NorthgateArinso, suppliers of the Pensions Trust’s computerised pensions administration…