back to article Bucks muck chuck muck-up leaks 840 email addresses

About 800 people in Buckinghamshire had their email addresses leaked by their district council in an email about waste collection. Aylesbury Vale District Council sent out a message to 840 people about garden waste collection that had everyone's email addresses pasted into the main body of the missive. The council told The …

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  1. Lionel Baden
    FAIL

    and we have information and security policies in place.

    Umm so no checking service that halts any emails going out with hundreds of email address's in the To field,

    Or checking for plaintext email address's

    1. Lord Voldemortgage

      "no checking service that halts any emails going out with hundreds of email address's in the To field"

      The article says the addresses were in the "main body" of the email

      Not that that is in any way more forgiveable.

      1. Lionel Baden
        Facepalm

        guess you didnt read it all

        ill say it again

        Or checking for plaintext email address's

        1. Kubla Cant
          Headmaster

          Re: guess you didnt read it all

          Guess you didn't either; the word is "addresses", with no apostrophe, as the both the article and the previous post made clear.

          1. Lionel Baden
            FAIL

            Re: guess you didnt read it all

            Thats right attack another aspect when original point proven wrong.

            Apologies for my difficulties of writing perfectly correct grammer, my point is still valid regardless of mis-spelling and / or gramatical errors.

            Fsking grammer nazi's

          2. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: and we have information and security policies in place.

      No they said they had policies in place, that's all they will have as not many (probably even none) will have the sort of software installed/configured to catch the type of error you described.

  2. Andy Watt
    Thumb Up

    On the plus side...

    They now have a ready-made mailing list to galvanise efforts against the draconian policies of the council...

  3. George09
    WTF?

    Back To The Future

    "We [also] take the situation that happened yesterday very seriously and are undergoing an internal investigation with our fraud team that will report back early last week".

    report back last week?

  4. GreyWolf
    Thumb Up

    Now that's how to write a headline!

    Congrats to those at El Reg who did that headline. You absolutely nailed it!

  5. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Admit it...

    You wanted to start the fourth word of the title with an F.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Before we get carried away...

    When the people provided their e-mails addresses, did they untick the box stating that they agreed to having their details distributed at some point in the future in either an inevitable data loss or staff blunder?

    1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

      Re: Before we get carried away...

      Lol, yes, you could almost make that a default if opt-out wasn't illegal..

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Time/Bandwidth wasting

    Poor;

    "About 800 people in Buckinghamshire had their email addresses leaked by their district council in an email about waste collection.

    Aylesbury Vale District Council sent out a message to 840 people about garden waste collection that had everyone's email addresses pasted into the main body of the missive."

    Better;

    840 people in Buckinghamshire had their email addresses leaked in an email about waste collection.

    Aylesbury Vale District Council sent out a message that had everyone's email addresses pasted into the main body of the missive.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Investigation

    I suggest they have an investigation that recommends measures which will ensure this never happens again until next time.

  9. Pete 2 Silver badge

    The victim pays

    The lovely thing about this is that the email recipients are council-tax payers in that area. So if the council is fined for this breach, the people who will have to foot the bill: either through increased CT to pay the fine directly, or through reduced services to make up the budget shortfall, will include the people who had their email addresses exposed.

    There can't be many situations where the victim of incompetence is also the person who is punished for it, instead of the person who made the mistake. Isn't local government wonderful?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The victim pays

      suggest what would work better.

      Raising council tax to pay for fines incurred by incompetent operation isn't a a great ticket to re-election, y'know

      1. Pete 2 Silver badge

        suggest what would work better.

        ISTM that torture has some unique advantages.

        It's cheap, quick to administer, very personal and has a huge deterrent effect.

        Plus, as a sideliine, you could always sell tickets to watch it.

      2. theblackhand

        Re: The victim pays

        How about the councillors have a fine deducted from their pay?

        - it shows that they are ultimately responsible for the running of the Council and are more likely to take steps to ensure that these mistakes are not repeated (i.e. by improving systems/training or removing impediments).

        - it doesn't affect the ratepayers other than potentially causing a councillors to be fined

        - the goodwill that a politician paying to improve something that directly affects the electorate would be measurable

        While it may have the downside of reducing the number of people who wish to become involved in local politics, look at the types of people that get involved in local ad central politics.

        1. Robert E A Harvey

          How about the councillors have a fine deducted from their pay?

          Councillors are an elected fig leaf with no control over the officers, who are mandated by central government to do things regardless of what the chamber says. I know of councils where councillors may not even talk to the staff unless the chief exec is present. They certainly can't instruct them.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The victim pays

        Easy: Punish those guilty personally, not the council.

        It's ridiculous to punish corporations or organizations as entities: They just hike the prices/taxes and nothing will change on personal level.

        So: Go after the persons.

  10. s. pam Silver badge
    FAIL

    Bucks Chucks Up a Fuck-Up of Muck...

    BCC are idiots, I live in this council. Their IT is worse than Beavis and Butthead when you try to use their pathetic websites.

    Even Dale Farm residents could do better. I have a Hotmail account just for BCC as their so pathetically Dain Bread it isn't funny.

    Entire council is an Epic Fail.

    1. Great Bu

      Re: Bucks Chucks Up a Fuck-Up of Muck...

      The irony of BCC sending out an e-mail with everyones e-mail address visible on it to which the solution would have been to include all those e-mail addresses in the 'BCC' field of the e-mail.......

      1. Chris Miller

        Are you sure

        that you understand the difference between Buckinghamshire County Council and Aylesbury Vale District Council? (I live in one, but the other starts a couple of miles down the road.)

        It's not unusual for the county to deliver IT services (such as they are) on behalf of their local districts, but I don't think this is the case for AVDC.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Email fail 101

    Surely people responsible for mail outs are awake up to that old mistake?

  12. Rich 30

    OH NO!

    Oh no, NOT MY EMAIL ADDRESS!?!?

  13. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

    *FRAUD* team

    Wow - impressive word to use in a cock-up, and totally wrong. AFAIK this has zip to do with fraud..

  14. Robert E A Harvey

    "We take the security of our data very seriously" - but not that of anyone else.

  15. vilemeister
    Megaphone

    So I've now has this email to be, and I got the one with student finance emails earlier in the year. I'm beginning to build up quite a large collection.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dialogue

    ICO: Tut, tut, tut!

    Bucs CEO: (grovel,grovel) We're so sorry. We take data protection very seriously, and have policies in place.

    ICO: I'm goinf to have to fine you GBPxxxx.xx.

    Bucks CEO: Oh, yes Sir. (aside) we'll just up the council tax a further pound, and collect bins once a month.

    ICO: This must not happen again.

    Bucks CEO: Oh, no, Sir. Lessons have been learned.

    ...

    ...

    (Three hour later) Deputy CEO: I say, someone left their laptop in a pub, and it has disappeared. It had all the CT payers' bank details on it. And the guy who was using it didn't understand all this business about passwords and excryption.

    Bucks CEIO: Oh, well, another crow eating session.

  17. 2Fat2Bald

    fraud?

    Possibly quite a clever move, actually. It's not fraud, but involving the team sounds impressive. Hremit extendsfraud, and doesn't cover incompetence. So the council can honestly say 'its been investigated, and the staff involved cleared of any wrongdoing'. Ie its a textbook case of answering a question you wish you had been asked 'are we dishonest' in order to avoid answering the question you should be asked 'are we competent'.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If the bucks muck could chuck any amount of muck, would a bucks muck chuck muck-up?

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