Dean Mosiman reports: Madison officials and employees are complaining that Social Security numbers were stored on a laptop computer stolen from a city office Friday. The laptop was recovered this morning, but it’s unclear if sensitive information was stolen. Any official or employee — except those in the police, fire and transit departments — who…
UK: Financial Workers Regularly Forget USB Sticks at Dry Cleaners
From the this-is-not-what-we-meant-by-cleaning-your-drive dept: As data loss reaches an all time high, a new survey shows financial workers in the UK are regularly forgetting USB sticks at the dry cleaners. According to a survey by Texas-based data security firm Credant Technologies, 9,000 USB sticks were forgotten in people’s pockets in the UK last year as…
CDT Paper: Rethinking the Role of Consent in Protecting Health Information Privacy
CDT today released a major policy paper intended to move the health privacy debate from its outdated focus on patient consent to a comprehensive framework that will provide more effective privacy protection. CDT is advocating for the inclusion of privacy protections in the President’s economic stimulus bill, which contains at least $20 billion for…
NZ man finds US army files on MP3 player
A New Zealand man has found confidential United States military files on an MP3 player he bought at an op shop in the US. Chris Ogle, 29, from Whangarei, bought the player from an Oklahoma thrift shop for $NZ18 ($A14.50), and found the files when he hooked it up to his computer, TV One News…
AU: Spammers hack into Government jobs website
Asher Moses reports: The NSW Government website used to advertise public service jobs has been hacked into and the perpetrators have spammed the Government’s database of job seekers with phony vacancies in an effort to steal personal data and possibly to spread viruses. The Department of Commerce, which administers the jobs.nsw.gov.au site, refused to say…
UK: MoD admits 440 computer data devices have been lost or stolen
Ian Bruce reports: The Ministry of Defence admitted yesterday that 217 of its laptops, 47 desk-top computers, 80 hard drives and 96 memory sticks were lost or stolen during 2008, despite a high-profile security crackdown launched last summer. The latest figures mean more than 1640 of the department’s computers and other information devices have gone…