The public is at a loss as to what to do about the alleged theft of confidential personal information of 11.19 million customers of GS Caltex, the second-largest oil refiner in South Korea. The case is shocking not only because of its size, but also how such data was stolen and leaked. It shows that one third of the nation's adults have been caught off guard as far as their privacy is concerned. People are all the more perplexed at the poor handling of customer information at the affiliate of one of the country's major conglomerates or chaebol.

... We cannot overemphasize the importance of personal data security in an information-oriented society in the 21st century. However, it is regrettable that the country has increasingly become a hotbed for hacking and information leakage, which could lead to fraud and other crimes. It is urgent for the government and corporations to establish tighter information security systems and raise awareness about privacy. Law enforcement authorities are also required to get tougher with those who leak personal data. They must now take action before it's too late.

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In the self-proclaimed high-tech utopia of Korea, where people have broadband connections on subways and television on mobile-phones, a recent hot trend seems to be class action lawsuits.

Police have arrested two employees of a subsidiary of GS Caltex and two accomplices on charges of unlawfully downloading customer information of the country's No.2 refinery and attempting to sell it on the black market.

... Lee Dong-gook, a Seoul-based private lawyer, began gathering applications for a class action lawsuit against GS Caltex and said he will be seeking compensation of about two million won per head.

... The Korean Information Security Agency (KISA) said it received reports from more than 9,000 people last year who claimed that their resident registration numbers, a 13-digit code that indicates birth date, sex and site of registration, had been stolen.

Security experts are claiming that companies should be held liable for the increasing number of security breaches, with many of them not bothering to encrypt their customers' data.

A KISA survey of 2,500 domestic companies last year found that about a half of them (50.8 percent) hadn't spent a single penny to enhance information security.

Source - The Korea Times

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A company holding files on more than 3 million New Zealanders is calling for an overhaul of the credit reference system.

Veda Advantage carries out credit checks for New Zealand's major banks and lenders and holds information on almost every person and business using credit.

At present, the Privacy Act allows only negative credit information to be shown on reference checks.

Source - Radio New Zealand

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HIGHLY sensitive and personal information relating to children with special needs has been left at a petrol station.

A member of the public found the information, stored on a computer memory stick, on the floor of a service station on the A303 in Somerset.

The highly confidential data gives names and dates of birth for children and a description of their behavioural problems.

Source - Thisiswestmorningnews.co.uk

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A recap of incidents or privacy breaches reported last week for those who enjoy shaking their head and muttering to themselves with their morning coffee.

Source - Chronicles of Dissent

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File sharing site The Pirate Bay is under fire for not reacting after autopsy pictures of the two toddlers murdered in Arboga last spring were uploaded onto site.

The children’s father Niklas Jangestig pleaded in vain to the site’s operators to remove the pictures.

“We don’t even want to them to remove the investigative material. But we don’t want there to be pictures of my dead children there,” Jangestig said to TV4.

The site’s operators responded to his request via email: “That is one helluva gripe. No, No and again no.”

Source - The Local

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Daniel went to his local Safeway with his brother to buy some beer. Daniel had his ID, but his brother didn't—but that's okay, because Daniel was the one buying the beer. The cashier, however, felt otherwise, and wouldn't complete the transaction without carding both of them. The store manager told him "the policy is, at the discretion of the clerk, to check the ID of every person present."

Source - The Consumerist blog

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A LAPTOP containing the personal details of 100 bank customers has been stolen from a Welsh branch.

The Royal Bank of Scotland has confirmed a computer was stolen in Newport in May, but said customers had not been informed of the theft because the details held on the laptop were encrypted.

Police said the theft happened in Commercial Street and that a man, who had been seen in the same branch earlier in the day, walked into an unlocked interview room where the computer was left unguarded.

Source - Wales Online

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Police detained two employees of a subcontractor of GS Caltex and two of their friends, Sunday, for the alleged theft of personal information of more than 11 million customers of the oil refiner.

The four planned to sell the information to the highest bidder, according to police.

The personal information of the 11.19 million customers included resident registration numbers, home and company addresses, and phone numbers, in what is the country's largest-ever data theft case.

One of the subcontractor workers, Jeong, 28, was one of the 12 people authorized to access the database and is suspected of stealing the information between July and August. He asked another worker to make a simplified chart of the customer information and record it in Microsoft Excel files on compact discs (CDs), according to the police.

Afterward, two accomplices attempted to spread news of the theft, by pretending they found the CDs by chance; one of them contacted a newspaper company and said he had picked up the CDs at a garbage dump in a leisure district in southern, Seoul. Police will seek arrest warrants for three of the four.

Source - The Korea Times

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A lost computer disc containing personal details about thousands of justice staff is not thought to have fallen into the wrong hands, a Government minister said.

... The hard-drive was last seen by contractors EDS in July 2007, but it was not until July this year that the private contractor informed the Prison Service and Mr Straw himself did not learn of the loss until it was uncovered by the News of the World.

The 500GB disc contained personal details including the names, dates of birth, National Insurance numbers and employee numbers of 5,000 people employed by the National Offender Management Service, who may include many prison officers as well as administrative staff and other workers.

It was shipped from offices at Mitcheldean in Gloucestershire in July 2007 for testing at a data centre in Washington, Tyne and Wear, and then moved to an EDS facility in Telford, Shropshire. It was only when an employee went to use it on July 2 this year that it was realised that it had gone missing.

Source - The Press Association

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