14 DAY TRIAL // The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) fined Bank of Scotland with £75,000 (€86,000 / $114,000) after the financial institution exposed the account details of customers on several occasions.
According to the ICO, Bank of Scotland repeatedly faxed the names, addresses, contact details, payslips, bank statements, account details and mortgage applications to the wrong recipients.
At least 21 documents were sent out to the wrong fax numbers over a period of three years.
The first incident was reported to the financial company back in February 2009 when customer information was faxed to a third-party organization. Later, 10 faxes were sent to a member of the public.
Both the organization and the individual who received the faxes had fax numbers that were very similar to the one of a department within the bank.
“The Bank of Scotland has continually failed to address the problems raised over its insecure use of fax machines. To send a person’s financial records to the wrong fax number once is careless. To do so continually over a three year period, despite being aware of the problem, is unforgiveable and in clear breach of the Data Protection Act,” the ICO’s Stephen Eckersley noted.