Jack Doyle reports: More and more town hall bureaucrats have been caught snooping on private details held on a giant ‘Big Brother’ tax and benefits database. Instances of unlawful hacking of the Customer Information System, which belongs to the Department of Work and Pensions and holds the personal records of 85 million people, have increased…
Category: Govt
UK: London councils use anti-terror law to catch charity shop donors
Miranda Bryant reports: London councils used anti-terror laws to snoop on residents more than 1,000 times in two years, it was revealed today. The figures, obtained by campaign group Big Brother Watch, also show that only 71 of the secret investigations under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act against Londoners between April 2008 and March…
Pentagon: Let Us Secure Your Network or Face the ‘Wild Wild West’ Internet Alone
Kim Zetter reports: Companies that operate critical infrastructures and do not voluntarily allow the federal government to install monitoring software on their networks to detect possible cyberattacks would face the “wild” internet on their own and place us all at risk, a top Pentagon official seemed to say Wednesday. Defense Deputy Secretary William Lynn III,…
Province ran unauthorized credit checks on employees
Trish Audette reports: Provincial government employees were subjected to unauthorized credit checks earlier this year, officials confirmed Tuesday. The credit checks — Alberta Justice collected personal information on 27 employees — are now the focus of an investigation by the privacy commissioner. “There’s nothing stopping the employer from investigating employees on certain levels. But there…