The UK government has lost personal data on every child in the country, as well as national insurance numbers and bank account details of parents and carers claiming child benefit, on two password-protected CDs sent through an internal mail service.

The UK government has lost personal data on every child in the country, as well as national insurance numbers and bank account details of parents and carers claiming child benefit, on two password-protected CDs sent through an internal mail service.

The UK information commissioner’s office (ICO) has asked the government to make serious breaches of the Data Protection Act a criminal offence, rather than attracting fines as at present.

When building an information security team, it is just as important to recruit on the basis of personality as it is to find someone with the right technical qualifications, according to Peter Berlich, a director of (ISC)2.

New biometric technologies and plans for increased surveillance are jeopardising society’s right to liberty and privacy, argued David Murakami Wood, managing editor of Surveillance & Society, at the Biometrics 2007 conference on Friday 19 October.

A fingerprint recognition system failed to prevent black-listed fans from entering football grounds and was easily fooled by simple spoofing techniques, according to a trial by Dutch research organisation TNO.

Finding the right balance between internet security and privacy is becoming increasingly hard when addressing cyber terrorism, experts at last week’s annual ISSE conference argued.

Biometrics has changed in several significant ways over the last decade, according to a prominent expert in the field.

Users of IT security products should see no gaps in service resulting from floods in Britain, despite the location of several vendors in some of the worst-affected towns.

Google is buying its way into the infosecurity market, through purchasing security service provider Postini for $625 million (£310m, EUR458m) in cash, it said on 9 July.