Welcome To The Data Leak Lawyers Blog

Legal advice for victims of Dr Thair Altaii

Former GP Dr Thair Altaii was found guilty of voyeurism at Newcastle Crown Court earlier this year. Over 19,000 images of women were found in his possession.

The 55-year-old former “trusted family doctor” was caught with the images and video footage after a patient raised concerns about being recorded. During her appointment, she’d noticed two mobile phones propped up; one facing a chair, and the other facing the examination table. Police were informed, and after Dr Altaii initially denied having any such material in his possession after arrest, a shocking discovery was later found when his laptop was seized.

Here, we’ll look at this in terms of legal advice for a data protection claim.

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Is mobile phone data protection lagging behind?

There are suggestions that mobile phone data protection is lagging behind as a result of security immaturity and attitudes toward mobile safety.

The smartphone industry in particular has grown exponentially in recent years, and with more than half of the internet’s traffic thought to be on mobile devices, and with mobile apps springing up all the time, some experts are concerned at the lack of maturity mobile phone data protection has when compared to desktop protection.

Does security and attitudes need to change?

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Booking.com WhatsApp and text fraud a criminal show of force

The recent Booking.com WhatsApp and text fraud operation showed precisely what criminals can do with enough data at their disposal.

According to the media reports in the aftermath of the Booking.com WhatsApp and text issue, criminals were looking to reap hundreds of thousands of pounds in ill-gotten gains by duping people into thinking they were Booking.com by using personalised messages that were said to have looked genuine, and included personal data.

Some people reportedly fell for the scam and lost money as a result, and we understand that Booking.com has committed to compensating victims.

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Profits set to fall in wake of Dixons Carphone cyber-attack

Profits are set to fall in the wake of the Dixons Carphone cyber-attack. A sharp fall in profits is expected after news of the massive cyber-attack that exposed some 5.9 million credit and debit card details, and some 1.2 million personal data records.

Some reports have indicated the fall in profits may be as much as 23pc.

The Dixons Carphone cyber-attack apparently took place last year, yet it has taken them almost a year for the news to be revealed; a matter that they will no doubt face further criticism for.

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Researchers say catastrophic data breach is inevitable by 2021

According to researchers at the Raytheon and the Ponemon Institute, a staggering 80% of IT and cybersecurity experts believe we may be headed for a data breach of “catastrophic” proportions in the next few years.

The combination of more and more devices connected to the internet, together with the increasing risk of cyberattacks, as well as the growing sophistication of the attacks we’re seeing, is allowing cyber-hackers the perfect platform to do some real damage.

On top of this, with organisations still not taking their cybersecurity responsibilities seriously enough, unless things change, we could be headed for disaster very soon.
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Carmakers are struggling to quash hacking fears over self-driving cars

It’s no secret that many carmakers are racing ahead with self-driving car technology. Since Tesla brought the futuristic dream into reality, many other companies have quickly followed suit.

Here in the U.K., we have seen government approval for the creation and testing of these autonomous cars on our motorways in a bid to be at the forefront of this new and innovative technology. However, there is still one major hurdle – aside from robot cars crashing due to mistakes that cannot be rectified by anything other than human reaction – and that’s hacking fears.
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Out-of-date devices like pagers reportedly a security risk

A report has suggested that employees from industrial environments may be leaking data through their pagers. For those industries still using such technology to communicate with their employees, this is not good news, and the report details how unsecure pager devices really are.

Pagers – wireless telecommunication devices that receive and display messages and voice messages – are practically a thing of the past now, but if they’re still in use, the risks need to be addressed.
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