“Is the ethical handling of data the new moral responsibility for organisations? Could it help organisations gain any competitive advantage?”

The ethical handling of data has always been the aim of data protection watchdogs and officials. Companies and organisations have the responsibility to handle data securely under the Data Protection Act (DPA), but there is a growing term of ‘ethically handling data’.

And this kind of data handling can be seen to  make a difference.
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1,200 hotel chains worldwide affected by malware data breach

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) originally believed that 12 of their properties were compromised from the data breach, but it now transpires that approximately 1,200 IHG hotels are affected.

On the 19^th April 2017, IHG released new information in regards to the data breach. The information shows that the cyber-attack’s consequences were far worse than originally thought.

The data breach led to the theft of hotel guests credit card information.
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Met Police potentially breaching 30,000 individuals’ data

The Metropolitan Police are being questioned for potentially breaching the personal data of approximately 30,000 firearm owners.

It transpires that the London Metropolitan Police have reportedly disclosed the names and addresses of 30,000 firearm and shotgun owners (around 5,000 rifle owners and 25,000 shotgun owners) to a direct mail marketing agency, named Yes Direct Mail, which is said to be as part of an advertising campaign.

In the absence of specific permissions, any handover of information can be construed as a breach of data law.
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Latest data breach affecting customers of mobile provider Three

Three are experiencing more technical issues and more backlash as customers are reporting another data breach.

Customers are reportedly left fuming as they discovered the data breach after they logged into their accounts to find names, addresses, phone numbers, and call histories of other customers rather than themselves. Three previously came under fire for failing to alert customers of the initial data breach which happened in November 2016; which sounds a little like déjà vu…
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Concerns over NHS plans to move all sensitive patient data up into the Cloud!

We have all heard of the online Cloud data storage; but pardon our old fashioned pessimism, but it sounds like a disaster waiting to happen!

It seems a far-fetched suggestion to trust all of your sensitive data to be stored in something that was named after floating wisps in the air that come and go depending on the weather. With all the data leak incidents and scandals erupting left, right and centre… we can’t be blamed for our scepticism when it comes to uploading personal information on the World Wide Web.

If it’s on the internet, surely hackers will always find their way in? So how is our sensitive medical date ever going to be safe when it’s all accessible online?
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26 million GP records may have been breached

Medical records contain a wealth of information on patients, and any leak or breach of medical information is a serious one.

Scarily, an investigation has been launched into the security of a computer system that holds 26 million patients’ records. The investigation, launched by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), is looking at whether the computer system complies with the data protection act.

If it wasn’t, who knows how bad this breach could be?
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Customers of “pay day loan firm” Wonga victims of serious data breach

UPDATE: PLEASE NOTE THAT WE ARE NO LONGER ABLE TO ACCEPT NEW CASES IN THIS MATTER.

For help and advice for other data breach cases and matters, please contact the team here now.

Around 270,000 customers of “pay day loan firm” Wonga have had their personal information accessed after hackers broke in to the loan company’s customer database.

The company said they’re looking into the incident and are “urgently investigating illegal and unauthorised access to the personal data of some of its customers in the UK and Poland”.

With data like bank details and other personal information accessed, customers may now be at serious risk of financial losses, as well as further breaches and serious distress.
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Parliament Scandal – data breach affects thousands of MPs’ employees

Of all people to accidentally publish personal details, you wouldn’t have thought it’d be an independent watchdog…

Following news reports form the BBC, the expenses watchdog has been left red-faced and has issued an apology for their disastrous error where approximately 3,000 MPs’ employees and their salaries were mistakenly published.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) was created by Parliament in 2009 to independently oversee and regulate MPs’ business costs and expenses, and in this instance, they have found themselves at the centre of a scandal themselves.
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We-Vibe data surveillance breaches the Data Protection Act

We have been approached by a number of concerned individuals in the U.K. following the news that the company behind the “smart sex toy” We-Vibe is settling Group Action claims in the U.S. for collecting user data without proper consent.

We have now taken on a multitude of cases as we investigate the circumstances surrounding the collection of data without the consent of users here in the U.K., which we allege is a breach of the Data Protection Act.

The Canadian manufacturer of We-Vibe, Standard Innovation, was fined CAD $4 million (£2.4 million) after they were found to be collating and using their customers’ data without explicit consent.
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IoT (Internet of Things) devices still vulnerable to cyber-attacks

Over the years, technology has been expanding and digital devices are on the upward trend. The idea of connecting a device to every aspect of the home or office for instance has been appealing to many.

Technology enthusiasts have coined the name Internet of Things (IoT) for these kinds of devices which are connected to the internet allowing them to correspond with each other… An example of this would be telling your device to switch the light on or off.
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