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…
Category: Non-U.S.
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…
UK: Online travel services company hit with monetary penalty by ICO following hack
From the Information Commissioner’s Office: Think W3 Limited, an online travel services company, has been served a £150,000 monetary penalty after a serious breach of the Data Protection Act revealed thousands of people’s details to a malicious hacker. The company was hacked in December 2012 after using insecure coding on the website of a subsidiary business, Essential…
Update: Benesse data theft suspect’s smartphone had info on 22.6 million customers
Updated breach estimate and scope: Education services provider Benesse Corp. said personal data on 22.6 million customers were stored on a smartphone owned by the Tokyo systems engineer under arrest on suspicion of theft and illegal copying of customer data. While announcing the figure Monday, Benesse, a subsidiary of Benesse Holdings Inc., said the stolen…
Ie: Private investigator to be tried over data breaches in October
Elaine Edwards reports: A private investigator charged in relation to alleged breaches of data protection legislation will be tried in October. Michael J Gaynor, trading as MJG Investigations, Beatty Grove, Celbridge, Co Kildare, was before Dublin District Court this morning facing a prosecution by the Data Protection Commissioner. Mr Gaynor faced 72 criminal charges in…