Freehold Community School in Oldham has been found in breach of the Data Protection Act after the theft of an unencrypted laptop from a teacher’s car, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said today. The laptop contained personal information relating to 90 pupils at the school. The school reported the breach to the ICO in January…
Category: Non-U.S.
ICO slammed for data protection enforcement failures
As regular readers of this blog already know, the ICO has issued fines over data protection breaches precisely four times since he acquired the authority to do so, despite public clamor for him to really get tough. Now Caroline Donnelly reports: … In total, information concerning 2,565 potential data breaches was passed on to the…
ESA hack did not breach internal network
Jack Clark reports: The European Space Agency has confirmed that a hacker entered its FTP servers and took sensitive data, including hundreds of passwords. The data breach exposed more than 200 usernames, passwords and email addresses, as well as server logs, the agency said on Tuesday. A Romanian hacker named ‘TinKode’ has claimed responsibility for…
UK: Norwich college dumps students’ files in skip
Ben Woods reports: Piles of documents revealing student names, photographs, addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and some files exposing sensitive medical information, were found in bin bags at City College. An investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) found the college on Ipswich Road had adequate procedures and policies for dealing with personal information,…
Ca: Software glitch kills electronic stubs for federal workers’ paycheques
Dean Beebe reports: A mysterious security breach has shut down the federal government’s online pay system, affecting some 320,000 public servants. The system was pulled offline for “urgent” repairs on April 4 after officials discovered the privacy of eight account-holders had been breached. Pay is still being deposited as scheduled in employees’ bank accounts. But…
Two suspects in Hyundai Capital hacking caught
Kim Tae-jong reports the latest in a breach involving Hyundai Capital reported previously on this blog: Police arrested two suspects Monday on charges of hacking Hyundai Capital’s database and blackmailing the company by threatening to release confidential customer financial information. A 40-year-old man, surnamed Huh, is thought to be the key figure who facilitated the…