Online privacy an issue for solicitors

Fri, 01 Oct 2010

With online information fraud now a big challenge facing solicitors, the online rights organisation Privacy International have announced they are to launch a legal campaign against a firm of solicitors in the UK, ACS: Law . Privacy International are claiming that ACS: Law breached confidentiality laws by leaking the names and addresses of over 5,000 customers of Sky Broadband .

ACS: Law, which specialise in assisting intellectual property rights holders to exploit and enforce their rights, have been working to track down P2P pirates who are illegally sharing content. This alerted a group called 4chan, who advocate content piracy, who hit them with a denial of service attack.

It was when the solicitors tried to get their site back online that a hacker downloaded unencrypted data containing the names and addresses of Sky customers, as well as X-rated films that they were alleged to have downloaded and shared illegally.

This last factor is what could potentially leave both parties open to fraud and identity theft . Privacy International, a human rights watchdog, are claiming that this breach was due to a lack of security and data protection on the part of the legal firm, and have referred the case to the Information Commissioner .
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