Wednesday 21 November 2007

You can’t steal what isn’t there

Yesterday’s story on the loss of 25 million child benefit records reminded me about the loss of more than 45 million customer records stolen from TJX, the parent company of retailer T.J. Maxx. The article, a while back, in Information Week describes it as the “largest breach of customer data”.

An interesting article, but the key point is right at the end: “With any luck, the TJX Effect will teach retailers this basic lesson: Thieves can't steal sensitive customer data if retailers aren't storing it.”

But governments have to store sensitive data -- they really do need to get things sorted, or the trust of the public will be lost forever.


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