Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) tagged posts

Attack of the zombies with “GDPR emails” breaks data protection laws!

This is an all-out attack by the zombies and it’s continuing post-25 May! They follow other zombies by sending us mindless emails saying this kind of crap:

“We’re committed to managing and safeguarding the information you give us when looking for a job. CLICK HERE TO STAY SIGNED UP.”

Or how about this:

“LET’S STAY IN TOUCH. Did you know? New privacy laws come in to effect on 25 May. This landmark new law is designed to improve your privacy rights. This is great news for online shoppers, so if you enjoy getting our promotional emails, just click below…”

Or this:

“We don’t want to lose you, so please take action NOW”

STOP! THINK! LEARN!

These emails are poin...

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British Government showdown with social media giants next month

Last chance saloon for social media giants, warns Matthew Hancock, Secretary of State, DCMS as British Government raises the prospect of a ‘breach of duty of care’ owed to users of social media services and promises more legislation unless they get themselves sorted out.

Speaking to The Sunday Times (25 March 2018), Hancock said Facebook and other tech giants that harvested personal data from users would be ordered to simplify their terms and conditions so they fitted on a single page.

He’s summoned Facebook, Google and Twitter to a showdown next month following revelations about the way Facebook data was used by the UK firm Cambridge Analytica to help Donald Trump’s Presid...

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Unlocking the power of direct marketing under the new EU Regulation

EU data protection keyAt a meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs, part of the EU Council of Ministers that took place on 4-5 December 2014, the forthcoming EU General Data Protection Regulation took a further step to becoming adopted across all 28 EU Member States.

The meeting, attended by Chris Grayling, Lord Chancellor and Teresa May, Home Secretary and chaired by Andrea Orlando, Italian Minister of Justice and President of the Council marks a tipping point in the harmonization of data protection laws across all 28 EU Member States.

At that meeting, the EU Council of Ministers gained partial consensus on two important and inter-related points with respect to data security and protection that ...

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What is meant by “data breach”?

Hacker typing on a laptopThis was the subject of discussion with Martin Hickley, a leading expert on all things cyber-crime and data protection related. Martin will be speaking at a special event that I’m chairing on 27 January 2015 at Cass Business School that will examine the impact of the EU General Data Protection Regulation on the financial services sector and what should be done in this current transition period ahead of the EU Regulation being activated across the European Union, possibly next year.

Two words dominated the conversation with Martin: DATA BREACH.

This is a term that’s being used frequently in the media and elsewhere and indeed is referred in the current Data Protection Act 1998...

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