Data protection

[Mulder]

With discs and memory sticks full of personal details going missing on almost a daily basis, you have to wonder how seriously many organisations take data protection.

I logged a support call with my ISP recently and was asked to confirm personal details for "data protection". After supplying these I received a reply, addressed to someone with a different name!

[Mulder]

Just the latest data loss http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7667507.stm ...

[Croydon Bob]

Have you noticed how it's always the "private sector" that has lost data belonging to the "public sector"? A simple solution to all these problems would appear to be to stop contracting out work to companies like EDS.

[Trinoc]

Have you noticed how it's always the "private sector" that has lost data belonging to the "public sector"? A simple solution to all these problems would appear to be to stop contracting out work to companies like EDS.
While I agree that contracting out stuff like this is crazy, I suspect that in-house data is treated in just as cavalier a fashion, but since a department is basically judging itself there will be much more scope for hushing the whole thing up.

We frequently hear about civil servants etc., leaving laptops with classified information on trains or in cabs or pubs ... but only when someone else has found them and so there is no scope for denial. We don't hear so much about hard drives, DVDs or PCs going missing if they don't turn up and get splashed all over the papers.

For that matter, I wonder how many cases of data loss by the private sector get successfully hushed up, even from the civil service department doing the sub-contracting.

[Mulder]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7671046.stm

Here comes another data protection and civil rights disaster!

If this happens, I think we should all put a suffix on our emails saying 'F... off GCHQ!'

[Mojo]

For that matter, I wonder how many cases of data loss by the private sector get successfully hushed up...
Or just not reported - unless it's something like a bank losing confidential/financial information it's probably not very newsworthy.