Transparency: You’re doing it wrong

Your data isn’t safe in the hands of HMRC. Previously, they lost confidential details of 25 million people.

Around 19,000 individuals were sent other people’s personal information in the post along with their annual award notice.

They each received one page of someone else’s tax credit renewal form which included a variety of different personal details.

These included names, addresses and dates of birth, as well as parts of bank account numbers, salary details and National Insurance numbers.

Another 31,000 people received the correct forms, although they were jumbled up in the mail-out, which started on Saturday.

One woman from Hyde in Greater Manchester said she had received a letter that included her neighbour’s earnings.

Geniuses. They JUST DON’T CARE about the actual and potential damage they do.

AJ

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All your webcam are belong to us

No wonder the government wants to give laptops to plebs.

A week or so old, this, but it needs mentioning just so I can close the tab in my browser.

The Superintendant of the Lower Merion School District — where parents have initiated a class action suit over the covert use of students’ laptops to surveil them in school and at home — has sent a letter to parents with more information about the spying. The school admits that there was spyware installed on students laptops that allowed for remote, covert activation of their webcams, but maintains that the measure was only to be used in the event of theft of the machine (some had speculated that the school was only able to surveil students’ hard drives, and that the images of a student engaged in "misconduct" in his home that a vice-principal confronted the student with had been taken by the student, intentionally, and stored on the laptop’s hard-drive, from which it was retrieved by the school administration — this now seems not to have been the case). The school also claims that the system can only capture still images, not audio or video. They have disabled the system for now and deny that it was misused.

As a result of our preliminary review of security procedures today, I directed the following actions:

• Immediate disabling of the security-tracking program.
• A thorough review of the existing policies for student laptop use.
• A review of security procedures to help safeguard the protection of privacy; including a review of the instances in which the security software was activated. We want to ensure that any affected students and families are made aware of the outcome of laptop recovery investigations.
• A review of any other technology areas in which the intersection of privacy and security may come into play.

School Sued For Spying On Students With Laptop Cameras Says It Was A Security Feature, Turns It Off (Thanks, Dan!)

Here’s the class action lawsuit that was filed. http://craphound.com/robbins17.pdf

AJ

Yay! Go Go Gadget Paedobase

People voted for this.

The investigation by The Daily Telegraph has led to renewed criticism of the delayed £224 million computer system, which is meant to protect young people by creating a single register of their contact details.

…

In November the Government declared that a pilot phase involving 20 councils and charities had been a success, and that the project will be taken up nationally.

Hey – it must all have tested fine then.. you know.. processes, security, backup & recovery etc.

But there have been at least three security breaches so far, in London, Staffordshire, Peterborough and Surrey, according to details obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

One “serious” breach involved two staff at Westminster City Council, where many politicians and public figures live, losing details of children that had been originally stored in an envelope.

Oh dear, what a shame.

An official report admitted February’s incident had been a “serious breach of the duty to maintain confidential data securely”.

“Officers involved have taken all possible steps to locate the data and clearly understand the seriousness of this incident,” the report said.

Peterborough Council refused to release, under FOI laws, details of its report into its “minor” security breach, claiming it did not think releasing information was in “the public interest”.

“The incident in question was a minor disciplinary incident that was dealt with swiftly,” a spokesman said.

Not in the public interest? You cunts. Surely it’s in the interest of EVERYONE who’s children are being entered into this massive paedobase.

Oh and it’s happened previously in the project:

Two of the councils that acted as “trailblazers” for the information-sharing project in 2005 were forced to investigate after staff breached guidelines on data use.

East Sussex County Council said: “There was one incidence of inappropriate behaviour in the early stages of the project, with one practitioner sharing access information with a colleague who had not yet received access information.

“Both accounts were suspended until the issue was dealt with through the [council’s] usual disciplinary procedures.”

Sheffield City Council said: “There have only been two incidents that have required formal investigation – both were identified by the internal auditing built into the system.

“The two incidents referred to above were considered to be ‘inappropriate use’ of the system by authorised users as per our user guidelines.”

Tim Loughton, the shadow Children’s Minister, said: “These incidents are just the tip of the iceberg.

Indeed they are Tim – so what are you going to do about it? Fuck all I’ll wager, once you bet your hands on the levers realise just how useful all this data is to you and your Westminster cuntplugs.

“These shocking security breaches reveal just how unsafe this database is,” said Annette Brooke, the Liberal Democrat’s Children’s spokeswoman.

“The initial pilots of ContactPoint raised serious security concerns, but the Government insisted on ploughing ahead with it.

Which is uncharacteristic of them… lol.

A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokeswoman said

Ah.. say no more – now we know who’s at the vanguard of this plainly fucking stupid idea: Fuck all the way off, Ed Balls.

AJ

I LOLLed

Well, what else is there to do?

Magistrates have been left ‘terrified’ after their personal details were accidentally sent to a prison workshop.

Her Majesty’s Courts Service revealed today the year book, featuring names and phone numbers, was delivered by mistake to a print workshop at HMP Standford Hill on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent.

It contained details of members across Norfolk – but not their addresses.

The area director has written to all the magistrates apologising for the error.

One Norfolk magistrate said: ‘It doesn’t particularly concern me as anyone can look in the phone book and find my name, but some magistrates could be really worried.

‘There will be those who will be terrified.’

Well well…. bitten by the hand that feeds, eh?

Shame.

THE STATE CAN’T PROTECT YOUR DATA – DON’T GIVE IT TO THEM

AJ

H/T Ambush Predator