More data breaches - sign the petition
Posted on Monday, December 17th, 2007 at 11:22pm. #
Another month, another massive data loss - names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses. Except this data was lost in May, and the authorities have only now decided to, you know, tell us. Nice.
The Driving Standards Agency’s privacy statement says it’s registered under the Data Protection Act 1998 as registration number Z7122992. Amusingly, the Data Protection Act’s own website lookup is “currently unavailable as we are carrying out maintenance work to enhance its security.” I’d be interested to see whether their notification says that personal data will be transferred outside the EU; so I’ve requested the notification document. You never know - maybe the Information Commissioner might use his legal teeth. I hope so.
But, talking legal - if we were in the US, the government would be forced, by law, to inform all affected individuals immediately. In the UK, it seems that we don’t have any right to this information. Ever.
Currently there’s a petition to get a similar law in the UK. While it’s only got 389 signatures at the time of writing, I hope it gets plenty more. Please sign it now, and please pass this request on to others. We can change the law if we all work together on this.
Oooh, a little bit of politics.
Relevant disclosure: my personal website (where this blog is) is operated for me by Not At All Bad Ltd which is registered under the Data Protection Act 1998 - registration number Z1084808. The data controller is james.cridland@notatallbad.ltd.uk - that’s me. I have a full disclosure on this website.
Photo: David Bleasdale. Used under licence.
Mike said at December 20th, 2007 at 3:02pm 
