East Lothian Council has issued an unreserved apology after a security lapse in which an employee lost a memory stick which contained personal details of young children attending schools in the Dunbar area. The council has informed parents of primary school children in Dunbar and district that a copy of electronic records it holds containing…
Category: Non-U.S.
AU: Hackers infiltrate domain name auction house (updated)
Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie report: Computer hackers have penetrated the database of Australia’s biggest internet domain name auction house, possibly accessing client home addresses and encrypted credit card numbers. Netfleet yesterday told clients of the security breach and said it had reported the incident to the Australian Federal Police and CERT Australia – the…
UK: Met Police admits victims’ email address sharing error
Scotland Yard has admitted inadvertently sharing the email addresses of more than 1,000 victims of crime with other victims. In total 1,136 emails were sent out “in human error” on Monday, police said. No other personal details were revealed and police are contacting everyone affected to explain what happened and to apologise, Scotland Yard confirmed….
Court says France cannot use stolen bank data for searches
AFP reports: France’s highest appeals court has ruled that authorities may not use a list of 3,000 people suspected of tax evasion as a basis to conduct searches due to its illicit origin. French authorities in January 2009 acted on a Swiss warrant and seized data about global banking giant HSBC’s customers from former computer…
AU: Privacy Commissioner probes Fairfax hack (updated)
Darren Pauli reports: The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner has opened an investigation into the breach of two Fairfax microsites to probe whether sufficient security mechanisms were in place during the attacks. […] Fairfax confirmed that two of its microsites were hacked but said up to 10,000 unencrypted credit card details compromised in the same attack…
UK: £140,000 fine for Midlothian Council after sending child data to wrong people five times in as many months (updated)
A Scottish council has been fined £140,000 after repeatedly releasing sensitive information about vulnerable children and carers to the wrong people. Midlothian Council was guilty of five data protection breaches in as many months last year. It is the first local authority in Scotland to be fined by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which is…