The Homeland Security Department?s Citizenship and Immigration Services clearly does not have its own house in order, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.
The bureau has lost more than 100,000 files in recent years on aliens applying for citizenship, asylum, or other immigrant status because of poor recordkeeping.
Advances in computer hardware and software have greatly simplified data-collection tasks, so one result is the rapid accumulation of massive amounts of information. But, just having databases full of idle information is useless unless it?s able to be exploited in some way. What commonly happens is the data is collected, but the familiar, well-trodden solutions are still the most often used by the business analyst despite sitting on piles of alternatives.
You're not nearly as anonymous as you think you are online. Even if your computer is completely free of spyware, trojans and viruses, your personal information still follows you from website to website.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. If your computer wasn't partly identifiable, there would be no way to get web pages, movies, podcasts or e-mails to you. It's often a good thing too that some sites recognise your computer and tailor what they display especially for you, like shopping sites you regularly visit.
Alberta?s privacy watchdog is fast-tracking a probe into the theft from a private home of a Calgary Health Region laptop holding mental health data on hundreds of child patients.
On Oct. 22, the computer was taken in a break-in at the northwest home of a CHR Collaborative Mental Health staffer.
The laptop was carrying contact, mental health and parental data on 1,000 Calgary-area children up to six years of age.
Wayne Wood with the office of the information and privacy commissioner said the seriousness of the theft is being handled urgently.
Four years ago, ministers gave the go-ahead to a scheme whose scope was breathtakingly ambitious. They wanted to transform the NHS into a hi-tech, computerised service, connecting more than 30,000 GPs to nearly 300 hospitals. A key part of it was the plan to put the medical records of 50 million patients on a single database.
FBI Director Robert Mueller said he supports a plan requiring Internet service providers to retain information on users' Internet activities.
In a speech before the International Association of Chiefs of Police on Tuesday, Mueller praised law enforcement officials for adopting a resolution that would require ISPs to retain information in case it is needed for investigations.
"As we all recognize, cyber crime is a growing threat," he said. "Today, terrorists coordinate their plans cloaked in the anonymity of the Internet, as do violent sexual predators prowling chat rooms."
Federal workers at 19 agencies have lost personal information affecting thousands of employees and the public, raising fresh concerns about the government?s ability to protect sensitive information.
Most of the information was lost or stolen. In a few cases, it was accessed by computer hackers, according a report released Friday by the House Government Reform Committee. Government contractors were responsible for many of the security breaches.
With expansion of internet, many websites promote themselves by sending you spam junk mails, advertisings and even spy wares. These things not only publicize your personal information, but also enable hackers and crackers to infiltrate your system. Anonymous proxy servers act as a wall between your data and internet, thereby providing security to your system and data.
South Korean authorities have introduced a new online identity system in an attempt to combat a wave of identity theft that affected more than one million people earlier this year.
Citizens will now be able to apply for a special Internet Personal Identification Number, or i-PIN, the country's Ministry of Information and Communication announced this week.
An undercover TV investigation claims to have infiltrated criminal gangs selling thousands of U.K. credit card and passport details for as little as $9.50 each from offshore call centers.
The "Dispatches" documentary, shown on U.K.'s Channel 4, follows a 12-month investigation. It included footage of middlemen offering an undercover reporter the credit card details gleaned from Indian call centers of 100,000 U.K. bank customers.
