British Government Loses 25 Million Child Benefit Records
November 23, 2007
A junior goverment worker is blamed for losing 25 million records including names, addresses, dates of birth, National Insurance numbers and other related information in late October.
The entire child benefit database was sent via internal mail by courier on October 18th.. The civil servant had disregarded rules by downloading the data to disk and sending the unencrypted data by unrecorded delivery. The loss was not disclosed until a month later in hopes that the disks would be located. A twenty-three year old worker has since resigned.
…a spectacular blunder that left nearly half the population’s confidential records inexplicably lost in the mail.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling told a stunned Parliament that a copy of the private records of the 25 million Britons who receive child-benefit payments had vanished.
Darling said two data discs containing records for 7.25 million families — including names, addresses, dates of birth and bank-account details — were missing due to a “huge, massive, unforgivable mistake.”
The result for the victims is uncertainty of fraud for many years to come, as well as increased mistrust in the government’s ability to protect sensitive information.
Related Links:
- British government on ropes as confidential records lost
- How papers see records data loss
- Q&A
- More articles about careless organizations that allow data to be stolen…
Home Depot Loses Laptop With 10,000 Employee Records
November 9, 2007
A laptop containing personal data on about 10,000 Home Depot employees was stolen from the car of a regional manager in Massachusetts while it was parked in front of his home.
“The Home Depot takes data security seriously and works very diligently to protect its customers’ and associates’ privacy,” said Sarah Molinari, corporate communications manager for Home Depot. “We continually work to upgrade and improve our data security and privacy systems.”
While the password-protected computer contained no customer information, the names, addresses and Social Security numbers of the Home Depot employees may have been compromised. Home Depot is providing free credit-monitoring services to the exposed employees as a result.
Just another example of how companies – big and small – fail to protect their data. The manager violated policy. But why was he even allowed to even get that far? Did he have legitimate need for the data? Why was he allowed to keep a local copy of the data on his laptop? Why was he allowed to remove that data from the work location?
These foolish mishandling of sensitive data happen on a daily basis. Careless human beings are the primary source for exposing employee and consumer data to thieves.
Have you done the same? Or perhaps someone you work with? It might be long overdue to raise these questions at your office:
- What’s being done to ensure data security?
- Are strong policies are in place?
- Does everyone know/understand the procedures and policies?
- How will bad behavior be punished?
Related Links:
