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Australia's Asylum-Seeker Database Leaked

posted by Dopefish on Friday February 21 2014, @08:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the another-nope-from-down-under dept.

RobotMonster writes:

"The Guardian reports that a vast database containing the full names, nationalities, location, arrival date, and boat arrival information for a third of all asylum seekers held in Australia -- almost 10,000 adults and children -- had been inadvertently released by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection in one of the most serious privacy breaches in Australia's history.

The disclosure of the database is a major embarrassment for the federal government, which has adopted a policy of extreme secrecy on asylum-seeker issues. As the department is likely to have breached Australia's privacy laws, it will be interesting to see what the repercussions are for the people who should be held responsible."

 
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by tbuddy on Friday February 21 2014, @08:45PM

    by tbuddy (932) on Friday February 21 2014, @08:45PM (#4531)

    The sheer number of offices who have to follow HIPAA standards that have 40+ people with the same login, default passwords on home great network equipment, and any other security practices that should have been given up a decade ago are staggering. If that's not bad enough at least a few times a year you'll read about gobs of medical records popping up from laptops getting stolen from cars. I'd guess most who are willing to smash your car window aren't breaking high level security, so you know it is a case of double stupidity.
     
    I think a big part of it is in the same vein as pollution. There is no financial incentive to have great security in the health sector the same as their isn't an incentive to be green in manufacturing. The fines, if any, aren't worth the costs involved and people in the insurance business especially know cost-risk analysis.

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  • (Score: 1) by SMI on Friday February 21 2014, @08:57PM

    by SMI (333) on Friday February 21 2014, @08:57PM (#4537)

    I've heard of a doctor carrying all of his patient's records on a flash drive around his neck. Yet another good argument for widespread adoption of strong encryption...

    • (Score: 2) by ticho on Saturday February 22 2014, @11:17AM

      by ticho (89) on Saturday February 22 2014, @11:17AM (#4785) Homepage Journal

      Won't help - that doctor would just have the encryption passphrase written on the side of that flash drive. Alas, you can't fix stupid.