Slashdot Mirror
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.
When their privacy is violated, it makes headlines.
When they violate ours, it's business as usual.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It was mostly only metadata.
personal information of the heads of state attending a G-20 summit [...] British Prime Minister David Cameron
A minor consitutional note, but David Cameron isn't a head of state. Queen Elizabeth is, but she doesn't have a passport, as they're issued in her name, and in any case she can just flash a tenner at passport control as ID, or just say "I'm the bloody queen, mate" and be done with it.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The only thing more annoying than a computer is a computer that tries to be helpful.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
They surely never have to bother with this on their own. It's handled all by their underlings, of course. I suppose one way to explain it would be that it might cause some minor political embarrassment if it were revealed the head of state / elected leader didn't have a passport, and therefore, technically speaking, was actually breaking the law when traveling abroad. They don't really *need* it, of course, but bureaucracies, if nothing else, tend to mind their p's and q's. The sender undoubtedly intended to send that information to another civil servant for properly processing it in some mundane fashion, as they tend to do. I'm betting 1000 to 1 that it was for no interesting or glamorous reason other than fulfilling a bureaucratic rule or an information filing law.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Forget the auto-complete nonsense. The question that should be being asked is why an un-encrypted email containing " Passport numbers, dates of birth, and other personal information of the heads of state attending a G-20 summit in Brisbane, Australia" would be being sent to ANYONE. I can't even send an unencrypted email at work containing MY OWN social security number.