Home Office clumsily LEAKS data of 1,598 immigrants, blames 'transparency'

The Home Office has embarrassingly coughed to accidentally leaking the personal details of 1,598 immigrants. Applicants in the “family returns” process had some of their personal data exposed online for nearly a fortnight, immigration minister Mark Harper admitted in a written statement to Parliament on Thursday. He blamed …

[Destroy All Monsters]

Security: It is a measure, not a process!

"Harper claimed that measures had been implemented to prevent such a blunder recurring."

I hope there will be a forthcoming article in IEEE Security & Privacy about how this has been implemented because I sure am still looking for these Magic Measures that people apparently manage to pull out of their hats everytime something bad occurs, with no followup questions either.

[smudge]

Re: Security: It is a measure, not a process!

That article in full for you:

"Staff have been told not to hide columns in spreadsheets."

[Tom 13]

Re: "Staff have been told not to hide columns in spreadsheets."

Cool! That'll save me a couple of clicks the next time I want to see the data.

[OffBeatMammal]

how many?

more worrying... the HO only knows about 1598 migrants?!

[phuzz]

Re: how many?

Maybe it's a list of immigrants who are rich enough for the government to like them.

http://www.workpermit.com/news/2011-03-22/uk/united-kingdom-lures-rich-immigrants.htm

not that the UK is alone in this:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/immigrants-buy-visas-in-latvia-as-europe-locks-out-the-poor-a-926543.html

[Nelbert Noggins]

Re: how many?

Maybe it's a list of immigrants who are rich enough for the government to like them.

More likely it's a list of immigrants who can still afford the costs involved to actually tell the government they are coming into the country given the price increases that have gone on visas over the past couple of years.

[Anonymous Coward]

forget 'only 1598 immigrants'

What about only having <30 visitors?

[Richard Jones 1]

Advertising

It was all a ploy to make the site more attractive and draw in more visitors with a 'spot the error' game. What about the 2 million records that were lost by the last government/shower. I take a more personal interest in that one since I was on that list.

[nsld]

I just came back from the IAPP conference

and I can assure everyone that "lessons will be learned" and some taxpayers money will go from the Home Office to the ICO.

In other words it will be business as usual but given the ICO's affirmed light touch enforcement policy and the fact that civil servants are immune to any sanction for monumental cock ups like this I don't expect much to happen.

What we need are proper sanctions so that those responsible for this get a P45 and pay the fine from there pension fund. I guarantee, with proper sanctions this kind of thing will get taken seriously and will not happen as often.

[Anonymous Coward]

Brilliant subheading

"Nodding watchdog".

Absolutely superb! Just like a really good cartoon, it sums things up perfectly. Give that sub a bonus!