The Government data loss thread

[Elaine Kirk]

I posted another data loss story today it is endemic!
I was going to wall the link you gave but wondered if it is ok to link direct to the forum discussion ? is this thread public ?

[Ali P]

Originally Posted by Elaine Kirk

I posted another data loss story today it is endemic!
I was going to wall the link you gave but wondered if it is ok to link direct to the forum discussion ? is this thread public ?

Yes, this is the public forum! Feel free to link away.

[Ali P]

Cop fined for looking up friends on police database

A POLICEWOMAN who illegally looked up information about her friends on police computers has been fined £1,000.

The court was told the police force is now supervising the training of new officers and is retraining existing police on their use of the Data Protection Act

How reassuring (not).

Her solicitor, David O'Hagan, said Wong had begun "innocently" looking for information about two people she knew.

"Her interpretation as to what she could access was obviously flawed," he said.

[Ali P]

Thanks to Stuart at EasyPC Scotland for flagging this up on his blog: NHS Lothian falls foul of the Data Protection Act

This extract will be especially reassuring for Sheila:

Ken Macdonald, Assistant Information Commissioner - Scotland, said: "Personal information has a value. It is vital that people's personal details are handled securely in line with the Data Protection Act."

Read the ICO report here.

[Ali P]

Nine sacked over National Identity Scheme breaches

Nine staff have been sacked from their local authority jobs for snooping on personal records of celebrities and personal acquaintances held on the core database of the government's National Identity Scheme.

They are among 34 council workers who illegally accessed the Customer Information System (CIS) database, which holds the biographical data of the population that will underpin the government's multi-billion-pound ID card programme.

The disclosures, obtained by Computer Weekly using the Freedom of Information Act, will add to calls for the government to come clean over the security of the National Identity Scheme.

The CIS database, run by the Department for Work and Pensions, stores up to 9,800 items of information on 92 million people, including sensitive data, such as ethnicity, relationship history, whether someone is being investigated for fraud and whether they have special needs.
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Freedom of information requests by Computer Weekly, have uncovered a string of breaches by council workers:

* Cardiff and Glasgow councils sacked staff after they looked up celebrities' personal records
* Tonbridge and Bromley councils sacked workers for looking up their friends
* Brent sacked someone who looked at their girlfriend's details
* A worker at Torfaen was sacked for looking at his own details

But this may just be the tip of the iceberg. Many of the breaches were discovered after sample checks, raising concerns that other breaches may gone undetected.

Gus Hosein, a management systems academic with the London School of Economics, said that breaches were inevitable.

"Human nature and the propensity of governments to abuse privacy means that the only real safeguard is to not collect this information in the first place," he said. "Create a central store and you will get abuse".

A DWP spokesman said, "The small number of incidents shows that the CIS security system is working and is protected by several different audit and monitoring controls, which actively manage and report attempts at unauthorised or inappropriate access."

Full list of security breaches

[Sheila Struthers]

Get Blogdial's take here:

http://irdial.com/blogdial/?p=2051

[Diane]

QUOTE: A DWP spokesman said, "The small number of incidents shows that the CIS security system is working and is protected by several different audit and monitoring controls, which actively manage and report attempts at unauthorised or inappropriate access."

I love this insane logic. We have had a small number of security breaches which shows the system is working!

On which planet do these crazy people live?

Do they even hear themselves? Check over the words before they burble them out? Do they have a passing acquaintanceship with reality?

Ah, the spin goes on...

Diane
http://www.threedegreesoffreedom.blogspot.com

[Sheila Struthers]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08...y_data_policy/

A trade body has lost a laptop computer containing the personal details of 37,000 people and information on 1,900 people's driving convictions. The information was kept on an unencrypted laptop which was stolen from a locked vehicle.

Repair Management Services of Blackburn has promised the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) that it will improve its data security and that it will encrypt laptops or any other machines which carry personal data no later than next March.

[Ali P]

They should have gone to Easy PC Scotland for encryption services. Check out their blog for a list of data protection offenders.

Thought I would take the opportunity to include a shameless plug for Stu of Easy PC Scotland who is one of this site's little techie helpers and provides our hosting via Equiphase.

[Sheila Struthers]

The Home Office has admitted to losing a quarter of a million more records than it originally thought.

The figure is revealed in its Resource Accounts for 2008-2009. PA Consulting lost a memory stick last September, which was originally reported to contain details on 127,000 people. In fact the stick, which remains lost, contained records on 377,000 people, Kable reveals.

The extra quarter of a million people are users of the Drugs Intervention Programme and are identified by initial, rather than full name, so shouldn't be at too much more risk of ID theft.

The original figures were for the entire 84,000-strong UK prison population, along with 10,000 frequent offenders and 33,000 people with at least six recordable offences.

PA lost that contract over the screw-up, but it remains the Home Office's favourite consultancy. The department paid PA £24.5m last year - up from £8.4m the year before - thanks to increased work on the National Identity Scam/Scheme and the Interception Modernisation Programme, Kable notes.

Deloitte and Touche came in second place, with a pork barrel stuffed with £21m of our money. KPMG scored £16.2m, up from £4.6m in 2007-2008.

The full report is available here as an 89 page pdf. ®