14 DAY TRIAL // It's no longer a secret that our data is put at risk due to employees' negligence, as they have periodically lost CDs, laptops or computers hosting our information, so today's piece of news is nothing new for us. However, let's see what happened and how it occurred. According to BBC News, the Driver and Vehicle Agency in Northern Ireland lost two discs containing details of about 6,000 people. The CDs, which included information of 7,685 vehicles and 6,000 owners, were lost somewhere in a sorting center in Coventry, the same source added. The discs were supposed to be sent to Swansea, but they've never reached the destination.
Among the details published on the discs, there were numerous details such as owners' names, address, mark of the vehicle, color and other type of information, the same publication continued. The only good thing about this data loss (if there can be one) is that no financial information was included on the discs, so the affected people are somehow safe.
Brendan Magee, chief executive of the Driver and Vehicle Agency, said that the information was not encrypted, so all the users who might receive the discs would be able to read the information stored on them.
"We were undertaking a review of how we transmit all this information. We completed that review last week. Unfortunately, this incident had taken place before we completed the review and we deeply regret it and we regret the embarrassment we caused to the customers. It wasn't encrypted. This was one of the problems we had identified through our review, that this was an actual weakness. We are now looking at alternative methods of transporting this information", the DVA official said, according to BBC News.
All the affected residents have been or will be informed soon about the data loss, and a special phone line has been established for people who might want for information about the trouble: 028 70341357 and 028 70341428.