Welcome To The Data Leak Lawyers Blog

“Cheaper car insurance if you give us access to your Facebook profile” – Admiral wants to create a new service which could potentially breach data privacy rights

In the digital age, where technology is growing faster than we can imagine, it serves as an important reminder that data protection and security must be at the forefront of all our minds.

Recently, car insurance company Admiral suggested using Facebook profiles as a way of assessing who should have cheaper car insurance. Facebook has blocked Admiral’s seemingly absurd claims; and rightly so!
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“Largest data breach in Australian history” – 550,000 personal details of blood donors were accessed by an “unauthorised person”

You may have seen the recent news coverage of the huge data breach in Australia involving the Australian Red Cross Blood Service.

It seems they’re the next organisation to face a gruelling investigation into how 550,000 of their patients’ details were accessed by an “unauthorised person”. It has been described as Australia’s largest data breach to date, and it’s a real concern, as most data breaches are.
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“BBC reports 169 data breaches” – 10,000 customers’ data lost over a decade

Recent reports show that BBC has allegedly breached 10,000 of their customers’ personal data over the period of almost a decade.

Over the 10 year period it was reported that there were 169 data breaches, according to a Freedom of Information Act request. The personal information that seems to have been lost includes partial bank details, mobile numbers, addresses, and signatures through TV licensing fee accounts.

All very worrying…
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“iOS and Android are Leaking Data” – The mobile device software providers are leaking all types of data, including metadata, personal data, and location data

In the midst of increasing data protection woes, new reports suggest that the biggest mobile device software services – Android and iOS – are both leaking huge amounts of data.

Not that it matters more, as both are perpetrators of the leaking data, but iOS applications are said to be leaking considerably more when compared with Android.

But both systems leaking data is bad enough!
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“Data breach fines that could dismantle a company” – The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council imposes a new EU regulation that could impose £122 billion worth of data breach fines on U.K. companies, taking effect in 2018

As cyber-attacks are on a continual upward trend, so is the need for real and robust data protection.

This is shown in the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council’s (PCI SSC) statement where new penalties are to be enforced under EU data protection regulations for data breaches. Any financial penalty should scare any organisation from potential data breaches until the end of times!

The figures are staggering!

It’s reported that UK companies could face up to £122 billion in fines if they violate data protection principles, which is a lot of money.
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“Big Brother Style Surveillance” – Yahoo allegedly handing over emails to U.S. Intelligence Officials

In the midst of ongoing cyber hacks that have seen information from millions of accounts from all sorts of services leaked online, Yahoo are alleged to have conceded to U.S. Intelligence Agency’s demands to search through customers’ email accounts for information.

This claim comes from the scandal that erupted last year, when Yahoo was found to be in breach of data protection rights when 500 million user accounts were illegally accessed. If found to be true, it is argued that Yahoo could be in serious breach of data protection rights, and may consequently face big penalties.
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“Paperless NHS with a Data Protection Risk” – Plans to bring the NHS into the ‘digital age’ could mean data protection risks for all NHS patients

It’s all well and good to go paperless and save money; but hasn’t this all been said and attempted before?

The NHS want to be innovators in the ‘digital age’ – and rightly so. Earlier this year, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt promised to save the U.K. £4.4 billion with an investment plan to make the health service more efficient by going paperless. But, as Hunt pushes for a paperless health service, concerns are still brewing amongst the data protection camp.

And it’s a real concern with the health sector still the biggest perpetrators of data breaches and leaks.
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Wrongful access to medical records

Our medical records are private and often very sensitive. Only those who we allow should access our medical records, and there should always be a good and justifiable reason to do so.

Despite this rather obvious sentiment, wrongful or needless access, or use of, medical records remains a problem that we have had to help people claim for. It can sometimes be people we know who have access to our records and access them for wrongful means, or it could be someone accessing records to change them, or to use information from them for financial gain.

It happens, and we have helped people who have had to claim when their records have been unduly accessed.
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Can we trust The Cloud?

A huge amount of world data is stored in “the cloud.”

Cloud computing is where data and applications are remotely stored rather than being stored on your own premises. This can save on IT costs and speed up operations, but it does raise the question as to whether it is safe or not.

More public cloud platforms are offered by the likes of Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, and with so much information being stored in the cloud, can we trust that it is always safe?
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Brits not happy about companies using healthcare data

A large number of people are uncomfortable that commercial bodies are able to access their anonymised healthcare records, surveys have found.

Health charity the Wellcome Trust surveyed 2,000 participants and found that the majority (53%) of people were happy to have their data used by commercial organisations, but only for research. 60% would rather commercial research organisations had access to their health data so that society do not miss out on the benefits the company could produce.

However, there was a minority of people (17%) that completely objected to private companies having any access to their health data, which raised the suggestion that an opt-out option should be available for anyone who does not want their health data shared.

Only a quarter supported sharing anonymised health data with insurance companies in order to get better insurance prices, and 37% supporting it being shared for marketing health products.
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