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Edited by Webmaster on 17/12/2007 at 19:49
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"Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly told MPs in the House of Commons that the information was personal, not financial."
Oh, that's OK then.
"A hard disc containing the names, addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses of three million learner drivers was missing."
So what is the point of advising people to shred this sort of info rather than just bung it in the bin?
"the data was housed on a hard drive in the Iowa City offices of Pearson Driving Assessments Ltd, a company employed by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. "
Why on earth would the DVLA employ a firm in Iowa?? What on earth for? What do they do?
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Phil
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A hard disc containing the names, addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses of three million learner drivers was missing."
Isn't most of this info contained in that readily available database called the telephone directory?
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Excuse me for being a bit dim, or uneducated, in the World of large databases, but why do Government agencies:
make CD/DVD copies of the blessed database which are easy to loose, and which _must_ be out of date as soon as they are made.
not use in house "intranet", or appropriate secure external access, to access the live database when needed? Surely it can be read/write protected for specific named users, or groups of users.
Or does the great God Oracle not work like that??
And.. is the Motorway full of couriers moving data about for HMG?
I think we should be told.
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"the data was housed on a hard drive in the Iowa City offices of Pearson Driving >>Assessments Ltd, a company employed by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. "
>>Why on earth would the DVLA employ a firm in Iowa?? What on earth for? What do they do?
Pearsons are a massive company. They own the FT, and they also administer all of the US and British school SATs tests. They also set and mark the tests that trainee teachers must undergo before they qualify so they hold a lot of data on every British teacher, schoolchild and many drivers. I think they also took over the EdExel exam board a few years back. Driving test admin and theory test is done by them.
Being American and privately owned it will come as a shock to all that they've made this mistake... ;-)
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And this is the bunch of 'losers' who want to get our data and put it on an ID card and/or passport and have threatened to collect up to 53 items of personal data before we are allowed to travel abroad!
Edited by Armitage Shanks {p} on 17/12/2007 at 20:21
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I don't worry too much - my data is out there.
My bank debit card was cloned earlier this year - being used simultaneously by me in UK and by someone else in New York!
Then my credit card was cloned in August (different bank). Last week I found it had been cloned again.
Bank security is a joke.
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"And.. is the Motorway full of couriers moving data about for HMG?"
Not sure how full but basic answer is YES :-(
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There's a silver Transit Connect that comes onto our Business Park its emblazoned with the Royal Coat of Arms and the splendid if rather inaccurate strapline "HM Government - Trusted to Deliver"
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I don't think any of the stuff that was lost was actually in the hands of the government (or its depts) - wasn't it TNT (or DHL?) who lost the discs? Obviously the data wasn't encrypted and shouldn't have been copied etc etc.
I think this problem is arising more and more because so much data will fit into such a small physical space. Its difficult to lose millions of paper files because they are so physically big. But when you can get millions upon millions of electronic files onto an SD card, and they can be copied in a few seconds, then keeping it secure becomes more and more of a problem.
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To be a bit niggly Aprilia, I agree that the data when lost was not in the hands of the Government but they had collected and compiled it, were responsible for it, and it was under their 'care and control' - for lack of a better phrase - and then they gave it to someone who did lose it. I totally agree with you about the ease of copying masses of data on to discs and tiny flash drives and that is a very real problem.
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Before reading it fully, I thought American drivers' details were lost!
Oh no, not again.... does it mean people without license can drive now???
And losing data from USA? Unbelievable. So far, "pundits" used to cry that offshored data is not safe in developed world - but what will you say when data get lost from UK & USA???
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American companies have very little idea of the concept of "Data Protection". My wife spends half her job explaining to her US HQ that we have the Data Protection Act in the country.
They can't believe individuals have to give permission for data to be used by other organisations and we can opt out of receiving such info.
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We had our details "lost" by a major finance company a year ago and have been plagued with calls from Indian "financial advisors" ever since. Despite being on the TPS and MPS lists, they continue to call. Police and the industry regulators tell us nothing can be done because they are not in the UK.
The only comical part is that the heavy-Indian accented chap in the call centre who speak to us, calls himself "Mike Jones" or "Steve Smith" or another "British" name. At first we had fun stringing them along and wasting their time, but when you start getting six calls a night, seven days a week, it quickly becomes tiring.
We are having to change our phone number to stop them.
Cheers
DP
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04 Grand Scenic 1.9 dCi Dynamique
00 Mondeo 1.8TD LX
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The only comical part is that the heavy-Indian accented chap in the call centre who speak to us, calls himself "Mike Jones" or "Steve Smith" or another "British" name.
I think nowadays they don't say fictitious names anymore! During my recent Norwich Union insurance renewal, just after lifting the phone some one said "This is **Indian name** answering from Bangalore call center...." And the chap also explained me how I can reduce my premium in legal ways. That's better.
Edited by movilogo on 18/12/2007 at 12:11
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Yes, but Norwich Union are a reputable company who operate within the law.
I don't know who these cowboys are that are harrassing us, but if they're happy to repeatedly call despite being advised on many occasions that they got our details from a stolen database, it's hardly a ringing endorsement of their general business ethics.
Cheers
DP
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04 Grand Scenic 1.9 dCi Dynamique
00 Mondeo 1.8TD LX
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The report in today's DT says personal details of young people are especially valuable, because they are "clean" and unlikely to already have bad credit records etc. Ideal clone material.
There is another report that they have just lost a laptop within the Palace of Westminster containing sensitive security information about the premises. Stolen, or left lying around.
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Now, I may sound a little "PARANOID" here, but I believe that something big is going to happen in the near future, something that's connected to all this loss of confidential information, and the government, MI5/6 and other secret services that we know nothing about will just turn around and say "it was someone elses fault" when in actual fact it's been in the pipeline for years and years.
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Yes, but Norwich Union are a reputable company who operate within the law.
Have you NOT read today's news? :
www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/20...l
www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/20...l
don't think any of the stuff that was lost was actually in the hands of the government (or its depts) - wasn't it TNT (or DHL?) who lost the discs?
;-) I thought naming and shaming was not allowed!
Also, I thought that no one has any idea where or how the disks have gone missing. It is not known whether the CDs even left the building, or if they did were they lost at the receiving end? It is quite possible, again see today's news:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007...l
The cartridge was sent by courier on Sept 20 but in early Oct HMRC contacted the company, based in Preston, Lancashire, asking for the data because officials couldn?t locate it. It was then established that HMRC had received and signed for the original couriered package but had no record of the cartridge.
Extensive searches were carried out at HMRC offices but it was never found.
Countrywide chief executive Graham Kettleborough .... told the Daily Telegraph:
?It?s disappointing that when you take the trouble to deliver by courier and get it signed for they can?t find it."
On another forum, one HMRC employee has suggested that the disk was found by someone lying in their intray and rather than risk being told off, they have shredded them and now cannot say anything about it.
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And I still don't understand why the data needs to be moved from site to site.
Surely it's just an old fashioned, cumbersome, and inaccurate way of looking at information.
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