Slashdot Mirror
UK Government Staff Caught Snooping On Citizen Data
An anonymous reader writes "More than 1,000 UK government staff have been caught snooping on citizen data — including criminal records, social security, and medical records. From the article: 'The U.K. government is haemorrhaging data — private and confidential citizen data — from medical records to social security details, and even criminal records, according to figures obtained through Freedom of Information requests.
Just shy of 1,000 civil servants working at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), were disciplined for accessing personal social security records. The Department for Health (DoH), which operates the U.K.’s National Health Service and more importantly all U.K. medical records, saw more than 150 breaches occur over a 13-month period.'"
Telling lies, well what a surprise.
I said - don't look Ethel!..., but it was too late..., she'd already looked.
Would be interesting to submit F.o.I requests in other countries (that have them).
Give someone access to people's private information and it will be abused. Here I'm giving you this box that contains pure awesomeness. Please don't open it.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
All I could picture was Data from ST:TNG walking around saying "Rusebud"
Clearly they're just trying to find something to do in between watching episodes of Jeremy Kyle, so they're not wasting their time doing stuff like work.
Ugh? You are aware of what country Obama is president of right?
If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
Just shy of 1,000 civil servants ... were disciplined ...
WTF, how about sacking these people, they clearly can't be trusted in their position. Better still, make it a criminal offence (if it isn't already) and charge them.
I worked for the Ordnance Survey in Southampton after Uni. During training we were shown examples of where people had altered maps (someone wrote "HI" in land tiles in the North Sea, and a building was labled "Kate's cradle of filth"). It was explained to us that all work was logged. If caught we would be sacked. If we'd already left, we'd be chased up under the Official Secrets Act.
Whether it was all a threat, I don't know. But I certainly didn't risk finding out. Neither did any of my friends.
These people, though, were doing nothing wrong so they have nothing to fear from these unelected civil servants poking through their personal information, right?
...right?
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
The United Kingdom, apparently!
Mrs May, you and your departments can piss off if you think you getting any more my info!
How are you going to stop them?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Someone needs to remind O'bama that Ireland became independent in 1922.
The problem I have with these figures is that they give no details of the nature of the offences.
Were these all "I want to find embarrassing data on my ex or a celebrity!"? Were some of them just "staff member legitimately needed to access an account and should've waited for his boss to authorise first".
How many of them were procedural mistakes and how many were genuine cases of snooping? A high number of the former would paint a very different picture and asks different questions to a higher number of the latter. But then Dispatches is a horribly sensationalist program so I doubt they care.
TFA:
The penalties for a criminal offence go up to £5,000 ($7,900) in a lower magistrates court, or an unlimited fine in a higher Crown court. Some British politicians even called for some extreme data breaches to result in prison sentences — something dismissed by other parliamentary committee members. Rarely does the fine rise to five-figures, let alone six. Only recently, one Scottish local authority was fined £140,000 ($220,000) for five separate data breaches — the highest fine imposed by the courts to date.
When you fine the government, they just increase taxes. We need some personal accountability here.
This sort of thing always happens. The only way we could even begin to reduce it is to automatically fire anyone caught doing it, followed by criminal prosecution. Even then people will try to get away with it.
The only sane solution is to just accept that it can't be prevented and not allow data to be made available in this way.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Yes, well maybe that was the CHANGE that the AC was HOPING for?
If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
The FOI request revealled the number of civil servants who had done it but private enterprise is not subject to that act. The same thing will go on but it will never be publicised.
And I'm not going to buy any arguments that private enterprise security procedures would prevent it.
WTH has Obama got to do with it?
These are disciplinary actions, not administrative errors. Verbal ticking offs don't get listed. So they'll all real breaches.
“unauthorised disclosures of official, sensitive, private and/or personal information”,
I wonder how many of these are civil servants handing data over to Murdoch's newspapers & TV interests, given we know his newspapers even hacked telephones, buying info from civil servants about celebrities and politicians seems extremely likely. I wouldn't be surprised if a large percentage of those leaks were to Murdochs lot.
But the big revelation is that there are 200,000 civil servants approved to access the databases. That's an insane number! What did they expect, 200,000 possible leak points, the system is designed to leak private data like a sieve.
Most likely these are only the leaks that CAN BE CLEARLY IDENTIFIED as leaks. I think that's the TIP OF THE ICEBERG, since most of the data leakers would NEVER GET CAUGHT.
If true, this is a Bad Thing (though not terribly surprising). TFS is a bit wrong though. The Department of Health is not responsible for the NHS across the UK, and never has been. It has only ever been responsible for health in England and Wales, with the latter being devolved to the Welsh Assembly in 1999. Arrangements for social services are a little dfferent, but again this isn't necessarily relevant to all of the UK. Not that civil servants in devolved departments are perfect, but this is just another example of the UK stopping at the M25 (don't worry America, it's not just you, the British MSM and Westminster politicians do it all the time).
Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals... except the weasel."
Sadly this will never get the attension it needs, the goverment will keep pushing for a single centrizied database either for the children for under the need to stop terrorisum, even with their track record of data fail. But we are just numbers right so who cares
WIkilink to list of UK data loses we know about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UK_government_data_losses
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7103566.stm
We know the goverment can track cars in real time, intercept sms and phone calls in real time, and after the centerized commications they will be able to cross ref that with your internet habbits. All in one super database to stop terrorisum.
I wrote to my MP who is a tory, I had a bit of a rant about the Goverment U-turning on this retraining data as it is one of the reasons i personally voted for them. The guy replied but it was like reading BBC news, a sales pitch that was all fluff and no content. It was all about stopping terrorisum it was just pure propaganda to push an ageneder that I personally did not think this MP was even aware of, it just seemed he was given a press release, told this is what he is going to be doing and refusing to look at anything else. The funny thing was I also wrote to my councilers and they also sent him letters along the same lines as mine all to be met with the same reply. Everyone is against this, and MPs are not even listening to their own people to pushing their own agenders.
L
Yes and you're aware he's done nothing to stop this right?
Don't try to change the subject, it's an obvious liberal plot in play here. A ploy to steal our personal information for socialist agendas.
I have 2 Police office friends, Well did have 2. One of them has admitted a number of times to just searching the records of people from school, friends and family. Basiclly the system is there he had nothing to do and just have a poke around, it jokes its like a secret facebook for police only. I dont have any secerts to hide, (my record has one instance of "he was stolen from" when i was 13 and lost a bike but some of my family are not so clean and now my friend knows all about them. The abuse of this information is every day and the people that do it do not think they are doing anything wrong, they are just using the tools they have been given for their own personal amusement.
I've seen greater ignorance. When the government's plans to increase surveilance capability were announced, a lot of people blamed the Queen.
I have come to the conclusion that it isn't the politicians that are the problem. Its the Civil Service. Governments are just a passing inconvenience to them, all the policies floated by the last government that were called out as being hated by the people are steadily being re-introduced by the current government. It seems that the reforming Tories in power actually have no power at all. So there is no point ranting at an individual politician because they may as well not be there for all the good it will do.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Many decades ago I read that book "1984", I have to admit that I were scared shitless at the thought of the all-knowing big brothers controlling every single bit of my life.
But at that time, - decades ago, - even the worst government (East Germany, North Korea, China, Russia, to name just a few) just couldn't have the mean to know everything about every single citizen under their control
Oh yes, those bastard governments employed a lot of spooks and collected volumes of data, but determined citizens always found ways to defeat even the most draconian measure
No more
With the advent of computers and high speed network, not only they (the governments) get to collect all types of data, they can data-mine the data so much so that they can get to understand us more than we understand ourselves
We might not know where we might go, or what we might do, tomorrow, for example - by simply referencing our daily/weekly/monthly routines, our health data, our financial data, the people that we are in contact with, etc, - the government might be able to predict, with a certain degree of accuracy, what we might do, where we might go, a few days from now
This is scary !!
Way more scary than the scenario outlined in "1984"
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
if any of these breaches can be linked to articles that have appeared in the British press.
8/10---they fell for it
I blamed the queen for signing the RIP Act. She is supposed to be a last-stop constitutional safeguard, who can reset the system if the government goes completely hatstand. She didn't.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
...that we already know about, never mind the ones they've so far managed to bury.
The simple fact of the matter is, there is no system-level security. It's a system of trust where the ones with access cannot be trusted. They are, to put it mildly, and without exception, un-trust-worthy.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
She is a figurehead with a great deal of power on paper - but if she ever tried to exercise it, you can be sure that power would be taken away in short order.
Let that be a lesson that the government won't be fucked with
????
Actually profit because these lazy asses aren't leeching off government money to spy on people.
Now you can automate more of the system without a case of "oh but people will be put out of a job".
Public work ain't a job unless you do something. Spying on people due to laziness isn't a job. Even the spooks do work.
I have come to the conclusion that it isn't the politicians that are the problem. Its the Civil Service. Governments are just a passing inconvenience to them, all the policies floated by the last government that were called out as being hated by the people are steadily being re-introduced by the current government. It seems that the reforming Tories in power actually have no power at all. So there is no point ranting at an individual politician because they may as well not be there for all the good it will do.
Of course, Yes Minister!; and Yes, Prime Minister! showed us this in satire 30 years ago.
But it would have to be taken away with the consent of the electorate. I suspect a speech by the queen about why she refused to sign RIPA would have resulted in a lot of MPs looking for a new career...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
In the US they sold data to foreign spies and organized crime.
Maybe the poor guy or gal takes the "Leader of the Free World" thing too literally?
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
One might posit that weak politicians (of all parties) who are unable to stand up to civil servants are a bigger part of the problem. Somehow the skills that seem to be required to get elected (and, as importantly, selected by a party to stand for a seat) just don't seem to include this skill set.
It's that way in the U. S., too, and worse. And a lot of our public sector workers are unionized which means they're nearly impossible to fire. They demand more money and benefits from the politicians who are more than happy to oblige them in exchange for union campaign donations. Most work for 25 years and then retire with big pensions and cushy benefits.
Until we get a handle on that we're screwed.
US: Jump!
UK: How high?
That's how "special" the relationship is...
Yeah! Don't be mean to him. He earned a peace prize for gods sake!
Just picture that the austerity measures taken by different European governments means that they will have completely dissatisfied government employees who will still have access to the same data that they had before.
The creative ways in which they use that power is a problem that will only get bigger.
For example, in Romania they have a system in which government employees feed information about pre-communist owners of buildings to their business partners so that they can buy the building rights from people who no longer live in Romania and who have no interest of going back but who still want to make a little bit of easy money. As a result most historic buildings and even parts of hospitals are being snatched up from under people who lived/worked there for the past 25-50 years and the scam artists are moving in.
The UK's civil service would be the equivalent of the US's federal and state employees. There's absolutely no connection, comparison or relevance to unions - which are securing those pensions and benefits from businesses.
While the unions do not always have the businesses best interests at heart nether do the management, the unions pursue the best interests of the workers and the managers of themselves within the limits of their job. It is a natural tendency to want to score well, and to feel powerful, and abusing or underpaying workers often acts to improve scores of efficiency, but these things drive off good workers and so in the long run are bad.
When they are in a healthy balance workers and managers *both* end up better off, but miss-balances cause problems and you need strong management to keep unions healthy. Unions who do genuinely hold the workers best interests in heart want to allow the firing of abusers as they spoil the workplace for all, but demand a fair hearing.
Government managers are often weekend in authority for political reasons and this allows the unions to become corrupted and bloated. Unions like managers when unchecked can often follow their prejudices rather than acting in the best interests of their workers or the company and so the government unions often will protect the bad apples. This is not a problem that can be solved by attacking the unions though, since week management AND week unions is by no means a solution, but by empowering the managers to have a greater authority to overrule them. This should in time clean up the workforce and the unions (as to do one is to do the other in the long run).
Has it been that long....
Trident submarines and everything?
Bernard Woolley: What if the Prime Minister insists we help them?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Then we follow the four-stage strategy.
Bernard Woolley: What's that?
Sir Richard Wharton: Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.
Sir Richard Wharton: In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
Sir Richard Wharton: In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we *can* do.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
You forgot the appropriate converse: UK: Ok, now you jump for me, old pal. US: Shove it.
Fear not citizen. The intimate personal data that we collect and store in perpetuity is perfectly safe in the hands of your government. It is protected form improper use/access and will be used only in a legal fashion, with court orders and warrants, only when absolutely necessary for the safety of our nation and you, yourself.
Don't resist our desire to collect and store this information. Resistance implies guilt. You don't want to aid terrorism and pedophiles do you? Besides, if you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. You're not doing anything wrong are you?
Think of the children.
P.S. the captcha reads "foretold". How the fuck does it know?
And this is why I am against any sort of central medical database.
So in short, the revolution will only come when the managers realize that they can in fact fire everyone and replace them with non-union employees.
Ok, as an American I have to ask. What does "MP" stand for in this context because the only definition I'm familiar with is "Military Police" which I'm reasonably certain isn't the correct definition here.
Same exact thing in Ireland too, word for bloody word. What do you call it when the regulators are the ones doing the regulatory capture?
AC, I don't think you read the GP fully. It says that public (state) workers are increasingly becoming unionized in the US. In that vein, they're not rallying against "the 1%" to demand better wages and pensions, they're rallying against the 99.99%: the rest of society.
I'm not sure what country Obama thinks he's president of. He campaigned in Europe and thinks naught of other nations' borders.
MP == Member of Parliament
www.Buy-Proxy.com - A "buyer-driven" global marketplace.
Minister of Parliament. And elected official in the House. Kind of like a Senator to you Americans I guess?
Minister of parliament. (congressman equiv)
I wish everyone I know could read this and understand it. I don't think it's too late to repair the damage. But it's going to be hard, and if we don't even think there's a problem, things will continue down this road.
At which point the managers will be the first up against the wall? I'd be all for that!
You are aware that the Tories in the UK are most definitely not Liberal. Right? That would be like describing Rick Santorum as a Liberal and a socialist.
No - MP == Member of Parliament
And more like a congress critter than a senator.
The House of Lords is more like the Senate.
I don't think you read the AC's post fully. The important part was how unions have fuckall nothing to do with the conversation, and in no way are any kind of equivalent to the UK civil service.
Yawn... this happens in the USA too. Anywhere you have personal records, there will be an employee who will access them for purposes other than intended. Do you think the people at the DMV haven't used their access to check on people that they have no business checking? How about the people that manage passports? There was that mess a few years ago.
The House of Lords is more like the Senate.
Except it's not much like it at all. The second-chamber systems in the UK and US are really very different. In particular, the UK system is all appointed, with both political members and experts nominated.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Very true
They are difficult comparisons as in the UK the equivalent of president (the Prime Minister) sits in the Houses of Parliament. My comparison was derived from the fact that the House of Lords is the second house - much like the Senate. Just about there, the comparisons end.