Friday, April 12, 2019
Another day, another Home Office data breach
Considering the data protection rules which the UK Government quite rightly expects the rest of us to follow, one would think that they could set an example by following those rules themselves. Unfortunately, one government department has now committed its second data breach in a week.
As the Independent reports, the Home Office has apologised for committing its second potential data breach of UK residents in a week after accidentally sharing the details of hundreds of EU nationals seeking settled status.
The department has informed 240 applicants it “inadvertently” shared their email addresses with others who had applied under the scheme, in its attempt to establish the reasons behind “technical difficulties” they had been experiencing.
The admission comes just days after the Home Office apologised to members of the Windrush generation again after admitting it wrongly shared 500 private email addresses while launching the compensation scheme.
Despite the motives being attributed to this leak, it does appear that it comes from incompetence, rather than a desire to treat the recipients as 'second class citizens'. Nevertheless, the rest of us have tightened up our procedures and adopted very stringent measures to try and ensure we remain on the right side of law over GDPR, the Home Office has no excuse not to do the same.
As the Independent reports, the Home Office has apologised for committing its second potential data breach of UK residents in a week after accidentally sharing the details of hundreds of EU nationals seeking settled status.
The department has informed 240 applicants it “inadvertently” shared their email addresses with others who had applied under the scheme, in its attempt to establish the reasons behind “technical difficulties” they had been experiencing.
The admission comes just days after the Home Office apologised to members of the Windrush generation again after admitting it wrongly shared 500 private email addresses while launching the compensation scheme.
Despite the motives being attributed to this leak, it does appear that it comes from incompetence, rather than a desire to treat the recipients as 'second class citizens'. Nevertheless, the rest of us have tightened up our procedures and adopted very stringent measures to try and ensure we remain on the right side of law over GDPR, the Home Office has no excuse not to do the same.
