Last year, IT security firm Sophos ran an experiment on Facebook to demonstrate just how willing people were to hand over their information to potential ID thieves. They created a fake profile page on Facebook for a small green plastic frog and sent out 200 friend requests to other Facebook users. Eighty-two of those people responded, and in doing so, divulged personal information like their email address, birthdate, workplace or school location, and phone number – all useful details for the aspiring identity thief.
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As we close out 2007, we’d like to sound a note of caution for privacy rights in Canada. We are lucky to have a variety of protections for personal information and data at the territorial, provincial and federal levels. Nevertheless, the Commissioner took a moment last week to highlight some of the steps that need to be taken by individuals, corporations and the government in the face of continuing challenges:
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This week, we’ve been speaking to the mediaFootnote 1 about an incident at the Passport Office: a person using their online application form found that they could access others’ personal documents by changing one variable in the URL displayed in their browser. The Globe and Mail and Slashdot report that this was likely the result of an error in the code behind the web page – or an omission in the code.
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In case you missed it, last night the CBS News program 60 Minutes discussed the data breach at TJX (also known as TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Winners and Home Sense). Our report on the data breach can be found on our site. Further to our report, TJX announced they had, in fact, lost the information for 90 million cards.
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Are youth really this clueless about their digital footprint? The Information Commissioner’s Office in Great Britain has just released the results of a survey of British youth ages 14-21. “Six in 10 have never considered that what they put online now might be permanent and could be accessed years into the future.”
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When privacy advocates try to imagine their idea of the worst possible data breach, I doubt they could think up this catastrophe.
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