For perspective, given the massive tax refund fraud/ID theft in the U.S. Isabelle Oderberg reports: Over 23,300 Australians had their tax file number compromised in the 2012 financial year, according to data from the Australian Taxation Office, up from 22,000 last year. “Certainly, the delay in many tax refunds is because they have to go…
Category: Non-U.S.
UK: ‘Entirely avoidable’ loss of sensitive children’s records leads to penalty for London charity
A social care charity has been served a monetary penalty of £70,000 after highly sensitive information about the care of four young children was lost after being left outside a London home, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) announced today. A social worker, who worked for Norwood Ravenswood Ltd, left the detailed reports at the side of the…
Android app releases 760,000 users’s personal data, contacts online
Adam Westlake reports: A Japanese smartphone app for Android-powered devices has reportedly leaked the personal data of some 760,000 users on the internet. The address book application, Zenkoku Denwacho (“Nationwide Address Book”), was reported to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department on Saturday by NetAgent Co., an information security company, for the breach of user privacy. The application’s developer…
Follow-up: Telstra cops first TCP warning for privacy breach
Josh Taylor reports: The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has issued Telstra a direction to comply with the privacy clause in the Telecommunications Consumer Protection (TCP) code, following a 2011 privacy breach that left the details of 734,000 broadband customers vulnerable. In December last year, Telstra inadvertently exposed customer information online after one of…
Calgary Board of Education admits flub after publishing private info about trustees
Jeremy Nolais reports: Calgary Board of Education officials have removed expense documents from the organization’s website after realizing some of the published material contained private information. Partial credit card numbers and expiry dates, personal home and cell phone numbers as well as information concerning the place of work of at least one trustee’s husband was…
Sensitive social service files found on TV set that was former Enfield Council building
John Dunne reports: An urgent investigation has been launched after dozens of confidential social services files were found at an abandoned town hall in London. The documents, including highly sensitive reports on parents turned down for adoption and the case notes on the Victoria Climbié case, were left on shelves and tables on public view…