Breach in the data protection act enforcement

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Hi guys a company I have to deal with has breached the data protection act 1998.

They sent out 231 emails containing the personal address, some of them I can name then and give you the address.

How do I go about enforcing the act?

I have already told them, and posted a formal complaint plus notified the information commisoners office.

Have I missed any thing ? Can I do any more? Oh and should I start to contact the other people and tell them of the serious breach?
 
ICO is the enforcing authority, so you've done the right thing.

Even better would be if all those whose details have been released also report the matter to the ICO.

If anyone suffers loss, damage, inconvenience etc. as a result of the alleged breach, then they can pursue a claim in the Courts.
 
I have out in my claim, as this has caused a lot of stress in having to phone all the banks ect ect to tell them.

Then when I told first about it they sent another email to the 231 people trying to recall the email. Like that's going to work! :eek: They have this morning sent out another email this time to undisclosed recipients (like it should have been) apologising for this is the a quote from that email :-

"An error occurred within this email whereby other residents email addresses were visible. I must apologies for the error that has been made, it was certainly not my intention to reveal personal information or to cause any inconvenience." Just some how this doesn't inspire me with confidence.
 
Do you mean someone accidentally put the email addresses of people in the TO: or CC: field instead of the BCC: field of an email so everyone saw the recipients? Or was more personal information revealed?
 
Yeah in the to field, but in some cases like mine the email address was like 123mystreet@btinternet.com some other peoples address listed the websites/blogs you can click the link and go to the webpage where you can get photos of them and there family and the phone numbers ect.

Ico confirmed this is a serious breach.
 
Oh and some of the accounts also show who the customers ISP is, and you would be supprised what else you can then dig up. There is a bit more to this but I will not post That up as it's private information. Also given to them in confidence.
 
Hmm that is odd. I can understand how email addresses or even names could be revealed but links to web pages and photos is another thing.
 
timo_w2s said:
Hmm that is odd. I can understand how email addresses or even names could be revealed but links to web pages and photos is another thing.
Click to expand...

You just have to follow the trail. Eg fake address paul@paul.co.uk so go to Paul.co.uk and there it is.

Some of the address go to local gov accounts some go to NHS mail.

People do not relise the impact, what if some one wanted to use the data obtained for illegal purpose's

I am more upset as in my case I have an email address that list my real address. Eg 123anystreet@btinternet.com this is also the master account on the broad band.
 
Got it, OK I understand now. I have a personal domain and email address too but surely the information they put on their websites is for public access anyway if they put it on an open website?

I suppose the biggest issue is what the mailing list was for and if you want others to know you are associated with it... (it's also annoying if a spammer gets hold of the list and adds it to another spam list or sells it on to other spammers)

With regards to your email address, I'd be tempted to change it to something that doesn't give away your exact location if you are concerned about it. If you use the address a lot it can get into the hands on thousands of companies, mailing lists and who knows where else.
 
timo_w2s said:
Got it, OK I understand now. I have a personal domain and email address too but surely the information they put on their websites is for public access anyway if they put it on an open website?

I suppose the biggest issue is what the mailing list was for and if you want others to know you are associated with it...

With regards to your email address, I'd be tempted to change it to something that doesn't give away your exact location if you are concerned about it. If you use the address a lot it can get into the hands on thousands of companies, mailing lists and who knows where else.
Click to expand...

I am already taking steps to sort all that out. And yes you are right I do not want the other people on the list to know, I can't say to much about that on an open forum. But the point is the same. Only 2 company's had that email. But it was not for the public.
 
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