Identity Theft

[mwfanelli]

I was notified that my name and personal info was one of 93,000 on a missing laptop computer. Metro State College in Denver gave a graduate student this information for a thesis. No one was asked permission to allow this information to be given out. The data was in plain text on an unsecured computer.

This is not the first time personal data has been stolen due to sloppy controls. Metro is willing (they say) to pay for certain clean-up costs but... wouldn't it be much more intelligent to stop circulating this information on the slightest whim?

My take is that any organization and/or individual who does not take the simple steps to protect personal data (encryption, for example) should be charged with a felony. Any organization that gives out personal information without a person's permission should be massively fined.

What do y'all think about the increasingly sloppy use of personal information?

[SmartWombat]

I was notified that my name and personal info was one of 93,000 on a missing laptop computer. Metro State College in Denver gave a graduate student this information

Are you sure that's true?
That it wasn't a fishing exercise to get you to email back and give some information?

Any organization that gives out personal information without a person's permission should be massively fined.

That is true in the UK, under the data protection act, and throughout the whole of the EU.

Any person who gives out personal information that is unnecessary for the third party to do their legitimate business is doing it to themselves though.

[mwfanelli]

Are you sure that's true?
That it wasn't a fishing exercise to get you to email back and give some information?

No, the main page of Metro has it as a headline and the Denver papers and TV stations have been covering it.

There are many things I dislike about EU policies but privacy is not one of them. If only the US took this sort of thing seriously. If only people in control of personal data took this seriously.