Updated to include Paddy Power’s statement. John Mulligan reports on a data breach at the gambling firm Paddy Power, where details of over 649,000 customers have reportedly been stolen – perhaps as early as 2010: The stolen data includes personal information entered by customers signing up to the Paddy Power online service in 2010 and…
Category: Non-U.S.
NZ: City council documents fly loose (UPDATED)
Shelley Robinson reports from Christchurch: Thousands of city council documents filled with personal details, including bankruptcy and medical information, have been flying off the top of a soon to be demolished car parking building. For weeks, people in the Re:Start Mall and surrounding blocks have been finding parking infringement notices from 2001 – 2003. The…
UK: Review of the impact of the ICO’s civil monetary penalties
Have civil monetary penalties (CMP) for data protection breaches had any impact in the U.K.? The Information Commissioner’s Office has had the authority to issue such penalties since April 2010 for serious breaches of the Data Protection Act (DPA), and since May 2011 for serious breaches of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). From…
JP: Gifu police leak data to private company on local opposition to turbine project
As reported by the Asahi Shimbun: Officers with the Gifu Prefectural Police leaked personal information to a Chubu Electric Power Co. subsidiary about residents and others opposed to a plan to construct wind turbines in their neighborhood. Their actions could constitute a violation of the Local Public Service Law that imposes confidentiality obligations on local…
ZA: How to wreck customer relations
Wendy Knowler reports: As corporate mess-ups go, it was pretty big. A “pre-legal credit controller” employed by cellphone service provider Altech Autopage sent an e-mail to 45 of its subscribers earlier this month, many of them former subscribers, telling them to pay up or face the consequences. “We refer to your Altech Autopage account which…
European Central Bank receives blackmail letter after hack
The Local reports: The European Central Bank in Frankfurt has received a blackmail letter after its public website was hacked and contact data stolen, the bank said on Thursday. “There has been a breach of the security protecting a database serving (our) public website,” the ECB said in a statement. “This led to the theft…