UK Government lapse in security exposes recipients' addresses

guest · Dec 28, 2019

Government exposes addresses of new year honours recipients
Cabinet Office apologises after details of more than 1,000 people posted online in error
December 28, 2019
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...oses-addresses-of-new-year-honours-recipients

More than 1,000 celebrities, government employees and politicians who have received honours had their home and work addresses posted on a government website, the Guardian can reveal.
The accidental disclosure of the tranche of personal details is likely to be considered a significant security breach, particularly as senior police and Ministry of Defence staff were among those whose addresses were made public.

Many of the more than a dozen MoD employees and senior counter-terrorism officers who received honours in the new year list had their home addresses revealed in a downloadable list, along with countless others who may believe the disclosure has put them in a vulnerable position.

“I couldn’t quite believe my eyes at first,” she said. “I thought maybe that’s just what they do. But then I checked past spreadsheets and saw there was nothing on those and I realised this must have been a catastrophic mistake.”
Experts said the nature of the breach made it difficult to remedy. “This could be catastrophic,” said prominent data rights lawyer Ravi Naik.
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Silkie Carlo, the director of Big Brother Watch, said: “It’s extremely worrying to see that the government doesn’t have a basic grip on data protection, and that people receiving some of the highest honours have been put at risk because of this.

The ICO, which can fine organisations for data breaches, said: “In response to reports of a data breach involving the Cabinet Office and the new year honours list, the ICO will be making inquiries.”
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guest · Dec 30, 2019

New Year Honours: Publication of addresses a 'complete disaster'
December 29, 2019
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50937775

Iain Duncan Smith, who was knighted, said ministers needed to ask "very serious questions" about how it had happened, while a former civil service chief called it a "serious failure".

The Cabinet Office said the document was visible for about an hour.
Former Tory leader Sir Iain told the Sunday Times: "Ministers need to be asking some very serious questions of those involved about how this was allowed to happen and why no final checks were carried out before the document was published."

Lawyers who specialise in data protection think the ICO will see this as a less serious case of human error and may let the Cabinet Office escape with a warning about improving its practices.
But they say much now depends on the attitude of those who have seen their data leaked - they could decide to bring civil claims against the government for putting in the public domain information many of them have been determined to keep private.
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guest · Jan 12, 2020

New Year honours data breach lasted three times longer than first admitted
January 8, 2020
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politic...-data-breach-lasted-three-times-longer-first/

Ministers apologised on Wednesday as they admitted the details of celebrities, politicians, and police and military personnel were live on the internet for more than three hours.
The Cabinet Office initially said the list [...] was public for just one hour.

But in a statement to Parliament, the Cabinet Office Minister Oliver Dowden revealed it took civil servants 190 minutes to remove the personal data while they frantically scrambled to boost security for sensitive recipients, such as police officers involved in the Skripal poisoning investigation.
He blamed “human error” involving the use of a new IT system for the first time.

“The Cabinet Office worked with the police and relevant authorities to identify any potentially high risk cases and put in place any necessary actions.”
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Dermot7 · Apr 9, 2020

Adrian Joseph, conducting a review of the department’s handling of personal data, found such breaches are “too easily assigned to human error” where a “greater consistency of process, controls and culture” could have “reduced the risk systemically”.

He added in his executive summary: “There is a significant risk that further and more impactful breaches will occur as the amount of personal data being handled by the department increases.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ffice-risk-further-data-breaches-honours-list

guest · Dec 6, 2021

Government fined £500,000 for New Year honours data breach
December 2, 2021

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) found that the Cabinet Office had failed to put adequate measures in place to avoid such data breaches.
The error, which occurred in 2019, resulted from "complacency", it added.

The government apologised for the data breach and said it had put measures in place to avoid a repeat of it.
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After officials became aware of the data breach, the weblink to the file was removed, but it was still cached and available online to people typing in the exact web address.
The data was online for two hours and 21 minutes and was accessed 3,872 times.
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'Threats to safety'
Its director of investigations, Steve Eckersley, said: "At a time when [the recipients] should have been celebrating and enjoying the announcement of their honour, they were faced with the distress of their personal details being exposed.

"The Cabinet Office's complacency and failure to mitigate the risk of a data breach meant that hundreds of people were potentially exposed to the risk of identity fraud and threats to their personal safety.
"The fine issued today sends a message to other organisations that looking after people's information safely, as well as regularly checking that appropriate measures are in place, must be at the top of their agenda."
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ICO: Cabinet Office fined £500,000 for New Year Honours data breach

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