Apology as Data on Millions Lost

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We’ve seen some major data losses where tons of people had their personal information compromised by ineptitude but this one might take the cake. 25 million people? Wow. Thanks to GJSNeptune for the link.

The loss happened in October, when a junior Revenue and Customs official downloaded the data onto two password-protected discs and sent them via internal mail to another. The data on 25 million individuals and 7.25 million families, includes names, addresses, dates of birth, national insurance numbers, and, in some cases, bank account details.
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ops. I always like how people decide to take action to prevent stuff like this AFTER they have lost all the data. Nobody ever seems to sit down and talk about "since this is happening at other places, maybe we should make sure it doesn't happen to us". Instead they wait till they lose all their data, then they decide that their current measures aren't good enough. More likely than not, if you haven't changed how you store data in the past 4 years, then you are not doing enough to protect your data.
 
All the people/companies/organizations that take action BEFORE something bad happens don't end up in the news. You don't hear about how they fixed the problem before it was a problem. It seems like most organizations are stupid because you only hear about the stupid ones.
 
Internal mail sucks the big one.
I worked for a big name bank that was dealing with mortgage stuff, and the inter-office mailing system would constantly lose documents somehow. The bankers would reply "well i sent it in the inter-office envelope" after my instructions to send by certified fedex, ups or priority.
 
this is all good though in the long run, we need some serious laws around security... in cases like this in the future, people, many people should be going to jail... We're in the Enron of data loss, the big one hasn't hit yet... something is going to seriously happen within the 18 months that's going to require all new types of legistation just how Enron trigger OCA/SOX. There needs to be steep measures in safeguarding secure data.

Not a day goes by that we don't hear about millions of peoples data being violated.
 
The UK government scares me with how many ways they employ technology and practices that make data vulnerable.

Passports that can be cloned by standing close to the holder, proposed ID cards that could allow a fake ID to be used almost anywhere without question, allowing junior staff access to the private data of 25 million citizens and the means to put it on a disk in unencrypted form then mailed unsecurely to anywhere!
To name a few.

I wish they would wait until technology is proven safe before employing it in systems crucial to our countries security!
 
Its amazing how many huge security breaches like this have taken place of late. :rolleyes:

Mistake ? Or someone cashing on with organized crime ties ?
 
dj_taboo said:
Internal mail sucks the big one.
I worked for a big name bank that was dealing with mortgage stuff, and the inter-office mailing system would constantly lose documents somehow. The bankers would reply "well i sent it in the inter-office envelope" after my instructions to send by certified fedex, ups or priority.
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And I'll bet their excuse went something along the lines of,

"I was doing this as a cost savings measure. Sending it any other method would cost our department money. HOW DARE YOU JUDGE ME?!?!?!"

Because (deity) forbid anybody spend money to do things the right way...It's always so much better to bleed money like an open chest wound for things that DON'T MATTER.

[/rant]
 
stuff like this is the reason why governments should not be entrusted both domestic and foreign citizens data.
 
Good thing it wasn't something important... you know, like their dental records.....
 
The reason it isnt something like dental records is because there are hardly any National Health Dentists and those that are have so few NHS patients on their lists that there probably isnt enough data to lose! All the dentists these days are private so that they can rake in the cash.
 
indigo_prime said:
The reason it isnt something like dental records is because there are hardly any National Health Dentists and those that are have so few NHS patients on their lists that there probably isnt enough data to lose! All the dentists these days are private so that they can rake in the cash.
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He was being sarcastic :)
 
Satyrist said:
And I'll bet their excuse went something along the lines of,

"I was doing this as a cost savings measure. Sending it any other method would cost our department money. HOW DARE YOU JUDGE ME?!?!?!"

Because (deity) forbid anybody spend money to do things the right way...It's always so much better to bleed money like an open chest wound for things that DON'T MATTER.

[/rant]
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That's about right, apparently the person at the National Audit Office (NAO) that requested the information asked if sensitive information like bank details could be removed from the transmitted data, (Since they didn't need them), they where told it would cost money to strip it out, so they would be recieving the lot.

The response from the NAO was "Please could you ensure that the CDs are delivered to NAO as safely as possible due to their content."

So they stuck it in the general, untracked post...
 
Satyrist said:
And I'll bet their excuse went something along the lines of,
"I was doing this as a cost savings measure. Sending it any other method would cost our department money. HOW DARE YOU JUDGE ME?!?!?!"
Because (deity) forbid anybody spend money to do things the right way...It's always so much better to bleed money like an open chest wound for things that DON'T MATTER.
[/rant]
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Yeah that hit the nail on the head. I laugh when they think that our dept has an actual expense acct they could charge the shipping to. LMAO!! They wanted us to pay for it.
One lady actually sent us FAKE tracking #s to expedite closings. She didn't stay around very long. :eek:
 
http://www.tamebay.com/2007/11/child-benefit-records-appear-on-ebay.html

lol.gif


It's old news tho. :(
 
Since wife and I recieve child-benefits for our boy we are on that list :(
Good thing however is we have changed our address so if someone does get hold of the disks they cant do anything in our name since one of the key data is different

for others tho...

REally hope the national ID scheme is sunk due to this poor handling of personal data. Banks have been fined for just thowing out alot less infomation, but who fines the gov'n?
 
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