Posted on 22 May 2008 by James Blake

Auto-complete can be your worst enemy.  How many times have you started to type an email address when Outlook conveniently completes it for you into the wrong address?

The Conservative Party, the official opposition of the United Kingdom government, are certainly not a fan of this feature.  They accidentally sent the names, addresses, telephone numbers and voting intentions of 8,000 users to an Isle of Man based radio station at lunchtime yesterday.

The United Kingdom's Information Commissioner, who is responsible for investigating data protection breaches, has launched an investigation into the blunder.

This is embarrassing for the Conservative Party as it came the day before the Crewe and Nantwich by-election - the constituency in which the voters whose details were revealed lived.  The Conservative Party have also been quick to condemn recent breaches of data protection by the ruling Labour Party's government, including the loss of 25 million user records by HM Customs and Excise.

 

Category: Data Leak Prevention

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