The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has found Warwickshire County Council in breach of the Data Protection Act (DPA) following the theft of two laptops and the loss of a memory stick. The laptops, which were unencrypted and not physically secured or locked away, were stolen from council offices. They held sensitive personal information relating to…
Category: Non-U.S.
Personal details sent to the wrong family in data security breach
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has found The Highland Council to be in breach of the Data Protection Act after personal data relating to several members of one family was inadvertently disclosed to another unrelated individual. The data contained sensitive information including data relating to the physical and mental health of individuals. The incident occurred…
Barnet Council loses thousands of children’s personal files
From an editorial in Ham&High in the UK: Personal details of 9,000 school pupils in Barnet have been stolen from the home of a council employee, bosses have announced. In breach of the council’s policy the employee took home 20 unauthorised and unencrypted CDs and memory sticks full of the children’s details including names, dates…
UK: Foster files left in street on unencrypted USB
Confidential information held by social services about children in care has been found on a pavement by a passer-by. Dozens of sensitive Stoke-on-Trent City Council documents were discovered on a memory stick left in Potteries Way, Hanley, yesterday. The social services records of foster carers, family court proceedings, parenting assessments, child custody arrangements and the…
(follow-up) St Albans City and District Council takes action after voters’ details stolen
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has found St Albans City and District Council in breach of the Data Protection Act. A laptop was stolen which was used to store postal voters’ records as part of an election process in June 2009. The personal information, which was password protected but unencrypted, remained on the laptop when…
Thousands of stolen bank account numbers seized in Ontario
Karen Mullins reports: Police have seized thousands of bank account numbers stolen by an identity theft ring and charged six people with 80 criminal offences. Durham Regional Police and the Ontario Provincial Police have been working almost a year to bust up an ATM tampering ring in an operation dubbed Project Kaiser. […] During the…