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Oops: World Leaders' Personal Data Mistakenly Released By Autofill Error
mpicpp writes in with this story about a mistake that saw personal details of world leaders accidentally disclosed by the Australian immigration department. "With a single key stroke, the personal information of President Obama and 30 other world leaders was mistakenly released by an official with Australia's immigration office. Passport numbers, dates of birth, and other personal information of the heads of state attending a G-20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, were inadvertently emailed to one of the organizers of January's Asian Cup football tournament, according to The Guardian. The U.K. newspaper obtained the information as a result of an Australia Freedom of Information request. Aside from President Obama, leaders whose data were released include Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Chinese President Xi Jinping and British Prime Minister David Cameron. The sender forgot to check the auto-fill function in the email 'To' field in Microsoft Outlook before hitting send, the BBC reports."
Yes, I am called Barack Obama. Can't you see that in these forge... authentic papers? I just travel economy, as that is the most cost-sensitive solution!
"Outlook not so good."
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
It was mostly only metadata.
It's interesting for a couple of reasons. Given that the sender intended to send the details somewhere, I'd be really interested to know who the intended recipient was and for what reason.
Even more interesting, I never quite realised that heads of state would have (or then use), a passport. Surely no one actually checks it? I mean, I was once stuck in an immigration queue at JFK behind Paddy Ashdown, just after he stopped being something like the NATO-imposed governor of Bosnia and was an ordinary human again. He was relaxed, but his diminutive aide was not happy that Lord Ashdown had to wait. Fascinating people watching. But a proper bona-fide head of state?
The only thing more annoying than a computer is a computer that tries to be helpful.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Yeah, how dare the evil government have access to my passport number and birthdate.
Luckily the guy didn't email those world-leaders with all the recipients in the to: field, they would 'reply all' for the next 20 years and nothing would get done.