Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Banks breached data privacy rules

I briefly caught the end of a story on the radio this morning about the Information Commissioner criticising commercial organisations for playing fast and loose with private data. Then when I finally got round to opening my email this morning I had a message from an old friend pointing me at a nice report on the Commissioner's complaints contained in his annual report.

"Orange, Barclays, NatWest and several other High Street banks are listed among a 'horrifying' number of organisations who have breached data protection rules, a report out today says.

The revelations come as the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas warned company bosses they must take the security of employees' and customers' personal information more seriously.

In his annual report he criticises a catalogue of security lapses. 'The roll call of banks, retailers, government departments, public bodies and other organisations which have admitted serious security lapses is frankly horrifying,' Mr Thomas said."

The full report is available (1.2M pdf) at the ICO's website.

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