NEWS & UPDATES

75 MILLION nuisance calls!

You can probably guess what the nature of the calls were as well, right? It’s not hard to guess when pretty much everyone in the UK has been hit with these automated calls by companies who are desperate to find people to make PPI claims.

The company at the centre of this massive breach, the aptly named Miss-sold Products UK Ltd, reportedly made the automated marketing calls between November 2015 and March 2016, and they were the standard and annoying automated voice calls trying to push people to make PPI claims.
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Firms behind a massive 44 million spam emails, 15 million nuisance calls and millions of spam texts have been fined by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The four companies at the centre of this mass tirade of nuisance marketing have been hit with fines totalling £600,000 by the UK’s data watchdog. The offending companies failed to have the proper agreement of their targets prior to contacting them, which is what landed them in trouble for their actions.
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Vanquis Bank Limited reportedly instigated a campaign to promote and advertise its banking services by instructing a third party to send 870,749 spam text messages, and another 620,000 spam emails.

As recipients reportedly didn’t consent to receiving these types of messages, Vanquis were found in breach of the law and have been ordered to stop and pay a £75,000 fine.

Some 131 complaints about the texts were made to the 7726 spam reporting service.
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The U.S. Supreme Court is to hear a second significant case on digital privacy. Although digital data privacy is something that is fast becoming a common issue of debate, there remains a struggle to distinguish what the boundaries are when it comes to owning it or using it.

In this case, the dispute is between technology-giant Microsoft and the U.S. federal government. In 2013, U.S. prosecutors in a drug trafficking investigation obtained a warrant to search a suspect’s emails. It took the warrant to Microsoft demanding access to emails, and they put up a fight to stop access to them.
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It’s a potentially deadly combination: healthcare data and mobile apps.  In fact, one of the world’s largest diagnostics service providers had its security wall breached as a result of a mobile app exposing medical data. So, it has happened.

Reportedly, around 34,000 customers had personal and medical information accessed during the breach. The information included customers’ names, dates of birth, health records and some telephone numbers.

Thankfully, the breach did not include any financial details like bank account numbers, sort codes and NI numbers. But it raises serious doubts over whether the healthcare industry is really secure enough to combine with the mobile app industry. Is it just too risky?
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The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined Easyleads Limited £260,000.00 after they reportedly made 16,730,340 automated marketing calls without obtaining proper consent from the recipients.

In total, 551 complaints were made to the ICO.

Easyleads were found to have violated the Data Protection Act and the Private Electronic Communications Regulation (PECR) for the illegal calls, and the fine was imposed as a result of their actions.
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