Identity Theft

[Sharming Paula]

Any one see the Southend Edition of the Evening Echo?

Southend Council (my employer)informed us (by email) that our personnel records (nat ins no, date of birth, name, address, salary details, bank details and ethinic origin dets) were held on a laptop computer by an outside company that was helping us update our computer systems. This laptop was stolen from a car.

The implications of this are huge, identity theft, fraudulent credit applications, passports driving licences etc etc.

Do they seem to care? No of course not. There are a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of worried employees.

Why was the data on there in the first instance - why not use dummy records. Why was it not encrypted. The questions are endless.

Has anyone had anything similar happen to them?

[YELLOW]

One of my work colleagues was telling me about this today. Her boyfriend works for Southend council and apparently they've all been told to inform their banks to keep an eye out for any suspicious transactions. It's all pretty scary and to inform all the staff by e-mail seems very cowardly and callous.

[Sharming Paula]

Yeh right. I do Housing Benefits so like ya self YA see all the fraud that goes on like stolen ids (especially from the illegal immigrants).

Its also scary thinking that some time in the future I might be cloned (blimey they wouldn't want two of me!) <img src="/images/graemlins/elephant.gif" alt="" />

[Big J R]

As an ealy retired LGO, I CANNOT beleive my ex-employer would EVER allow personnel records to be handled in thi way.

 

As a matter of interest, I'm copying and pasting to an ex-colleague who may have an interest in this !

 

If I get any response, (on the legal side), I'll post !.

[Mark (Flag) Braintree]

Babs, you mention that the laptop was stolen, but would this information not be protected by a password, anything I deal with at work which is secure I have to type a password in before I can read it.

 

Would it not be possible that although they have stolen the machine the data is safe. They would have to login to that particular page. (On Excel or Word docs)

 

Correct me if i am wrong.

[Barry Scott]

even if it was password encrypted determined people can easily get around them. apparently a bunch of p*ssed off students in america sent a social studies study to their teachers at school asking them to name their pets, children, maiden names, etc. and managed to hack almost all of their accounts. hackers can easily do it, but to put all the information on a laptop and leave it in a car is just stupid

[Big J R]

I am P.M.-ing Babs on this matter. I have some interesting news !

[Sharming Paula]

Mark, I wish you were right but if you know a bit about computers then its easy to crack a password. The stuff was not encrypted so if you know where to look on the net you can buy programs to break the passwords and codes for just £30.

What they should have done was use dummy data but no thats too simple.

Well after contacting lots of people banks Nat Fraud Agency DVLA hopefully if any one does manage to retrieve the info from the computer I wont be too badly affected.

 

[Barry Scott]

i think you can get password crackers for free from some hax0rs sites

[Big J R]

Passwords and encryption isn't really the point.

 

Why the feck was this highly sensitive information left unattended in a car ??

 

I have sent Babs a lengthy E-Mail on the subject.

[Ian_W]

Personally, I would be asking them, if they admit responsability, and whether they will be paying out of pocket expenses should anything go wrong.

 

I hope it doesn't, but if it did, it would be nice to know who is going to pick up the bill.

[CANV EFM]

if you had a load of confidential information in a briefcase would you leave it on the back seat of your car?.. im sure if the twat who did this had say 3 months of has salary in cash cellotaped to the laptop then more care would have been taken..

 

mind you what is the need for having all that kind of info on a fking laptop