Welcome To The Data Leak Lawyers Blog

Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly amongst those who cover their laptop webcam and mic with tape

Social media giant and Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly amongst those who cover their webcams with tape over fears of cyber snooping.

We recently blogged about the statistic that one in three of us cover our webcams in fear that they could be hacked or accessed to snoop on what we’re doing. In a photo shown on the BBC, Mark Zuckerberg celebrates Instagram reaching its five hundred million monthly milestone, and those with a keen eye have spotted the Mac in the background that appears to have tape over the camera.
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Data Breaches and the panic they cause!

As soon as you hear of a data breach, most people get concerned; and rightly so.

Whether it’s the bank you use, a social networking site you have an account for, or a telecoms provider, it’s always a cause for concern to hear that information has been hacked or leaked from an organisation that you are associated with in some way.

But with huge breaches like the recent MySpace, Tumblr, and LinkedIn ones comes an element of panic that causes things to get lost in translation, and the result is other organisations getting wrongly dragged in to breaches.
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The main cause of data breaches? Human error…

The primary cause of data breaches nowadays is simple – human error.

As humans we’re susceptible to making mistakes. It’s what we do and it’s a part of life, and learning from mistakes to better ourselves is a responsibility we all share.

But time and time again data breaches – which are continual – are happening because of human mistakes that have happened before and CAN be prevented.

So why aren’t organisations doing more to tackle it?
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Has your Microsoft Outlook or Hotmail account been flooded with spam over the last few days?

You’re not alone!

When I woke up the other day and checked my Hotmail account to find I’d been flooded with a load of spam emails, I thought “oh great, some idiot has signed my account up to something” – but it turns out it’s not that at all.

Apparently Microsoft is having some issues with its email filters, and the result has been a tirade of spam mails that’s caused a great deal of annoyance for those affected.
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One in Three admit to sticking tape over webcams, is there such a thing as being “too cautious” about online security?

Studies have revealed that around one in three people will obscure their laptop webcam with the fear of the camera being hacked or being used to watch you.

To be fair, I do it!

The study has shown that around a third of people are inclined to use a bit of tape, or bluetac, or something similar to block the view of the webcam in the worry that someone could be accessing it without their knowledge, and it begs the question: is there such a thing as being “too cautious” when it comes to online security?
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Is there any such thing as a “non-serious” data breach?

There are differing levels in terms of severity of data leaks – it could be fair comment to say that a person’s full name being leaked is perhaps not as dangerous as a person’s bank account details being leaked. But it does depend on other factors, like whether a leak of a name is related to a sensitive subject; such as the full name of someone with a certain medical condition, as an example.

If that happens then just a name can be very serious indeed, but in an age where leaks are happening around the world all of the time – and we literally mean, ALL of the time – we ask the question: is there really such thing as a “non-serious” data breach?
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Check Point Claims Limited fined £250,000 for serious data protection breaches

Nuisance calls – the bane of many people’s lives!

Thankfully the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) can fine and prosecute organisations for failing to adhere to regulations for marketing calls, and in this example, Check Point Claims Limited has been fined a huge £250,000.00 for failing to comply with the law.

They reportedly made a staggering 17.5 MILLION nuisance calls asking if people had suffered hearing loss at work.
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Kiddicare customer data breach

The details of almost 800,000 customers of UK baby and child retailer Kiddicare have been stolen from a version of their website it had been using for testing.

Customers reported receiving suspicious messages that had not been sent by Kiddicare, and following an investigation, the data breach was linked back to a test website they had used which led to customer data being compromised.

The company has reported itself to the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) in light of what has happened.
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56 Dean Street Clinic Fined £180,000 by ICO; a move welcomed by our lawyers leading the fight for justice

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has concluded its investigations in to the 56 Dean Street Clinic data leak that saw the confidential HIV status of over 700 patients inadvertently leaked by email.

Our lawyers fighting for justice have welcomed the move by the ICO to fine the clinic following the breach. We’ve taken on a large number of cases since the leak, and we’re still taking instructions now (with the latest few being this week).
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Blackpool NHS Fined £185,000 for serious Data Protection Breach

Personal and sensitive data of thousands of employees working for Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was inadvertently posted online.

The discovery was made on 30^th January 2015 and reportedly affects more than 6,500 employees when a spreadsheet containing highly confidential information was published online back in March 2014.

The data included names, national insurance numbers, birth dates, religious beliefs, pay scales, disability statuses, ethnicity, and sexual orientation.

This is a serious breach of data protection and one of the worst we have ever seen here in the UK.
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