emobile/meteor laptops stolen with customers details

eircom: Tony

KoolKid wrote: »

Dub , you wasting your time here. It seems once the guys here decide they don't want to answer something then they won,t. I had the same problems on a couple of different occasions, with the lies being told by Eircom re alarm monitoring & phone lines. Tony even tried calling himself a moderator to get out of answering.
This raises serious concerns re the Talk To forums if the reps are able to be selective in what they answer & what they choose to ignore.
Maybe it should be passed onto Dav.

Hi KoolKid
if you follow this thread you can see that I have in fact responded to any emobile / meteor customer who has posted on this thread and offered to intercede where I felt I could help. I cannot answer the post you highlight by dub45 as there is no question there, just statement. This is an open forum and that is allowed.
I am not sure what you expect me to post here apart from the official and stated response from eircom. This is a serious issue and has impacted some of our customers and we are following procedures laid down to deal with this. We have offered the appropriate channels of support and have customers on Boards.ie to PM me in order that I can advise and clarify the issue where possible.
If you do wish further information on this matter please contact studyhub@eircom.net and you will receive a call back.
Tony

KoolKid

No response was expected of you as firstly, there was no question & secondly my post was directed at Dub45 . I was simply conveying to him my similar experiences to his own with having questions avoided here.
However I do not wish to go into this further here. That is an issue for another thread & possibly another forum

Dav

KoolKid wrote: »

Dub , you wasting your time here. It seems once the guys here decide they don't want to answer something then they won,t. I had the same problems on a couple of different occasions, with the lies being told by Eircom re alarm monitoring & phone lines. Tony even tried calling himself a moderator to get out of answering.
This raises serious concerns re the Talk To forums if the reps are able to be selective in what they answer & what they choose to ignore.
Maybe it should be passed onto Dav.

This has been passed to Dav...

Tony appears to me to be doing his best to get the issue resolved, but we have to try and keep in mind that 1) he is not the Eircom/Meteor Data Protection Office who will ultimately have to fix this mess and 2) he's not, from what I can tell, on the internal team that's been assigned to sort this out and is trying to help by making sure that team gets the details of anyone who's posted here.

We're talking about a company that's huge and that has a vast number of departments and areas to cover and the people either answering phones or emails or posts here on Boards - I don't see Tony (or any of the reps) being "selective" in what they're answering. But in the interest of keeping this thread on topic, maybe you could PM me some links so I can have a look.

dub45

Dav wrote: »

This has been passed to Dav...

Tony appears to me to be doing his best to get the issue resolved, but we have to try and keep in mind that 1) he is not the Eircom/Meteor Data Protection Office who will ultimately have to fix this mess and 2) he's not, from what I can tell, on the internal team that's been assigned to sort this out and is trying to help by making sure that team gets the details of anyone who's posted here.

Could you tell us exactly what issue you perceive him to be doing his best to get resolved?

This is a forum where Eircom supposedly communicate with their customers and if they take it seriously then why arent the people who work here on behalf of Eircom being kept in the loop? We have had the ridiculous spectacle of Tony attempting to interprest conversations that he wasnt party to where phone reps gave wrong information to people. How exactly is that getting anything resolved?

Dav wrote: »

We're talking about a company that's huge and that has a vast number of departments and areas to cover and the people either answering phones or emails or posts here on Boards - I don't see Tony (or any of the reps) being "selective" in what they're answering. But in the interest of keeping this thread on topic, maybe you could PM me some links so I can have a look.

We are talking about a company that has messed up big time - its size and day to day responsibilities are irrelevant and not an excuse for abject carelessness and incompetence and quite honestly I am appalled to see a boards rep defending them in any way. Remember we are talking about breaking the law here.

Through sheer carelessness and failure to implement what seems to have been a lousy policy anyway Eircom have endangered many of their customers and incidentally employees. They have been publicly criticised by the Data Protection People for the most basic thing of all and that is reporting their failure to that office in a timely fashion.

There is no indication whatsoever that they they anticipated even the most basic requirements for their customers such as replacing passsports or the opening of new bank accounts for customers affected.

They are not being selective because they dont appear to be answering anything. Can anyone point to any substantive answer that any of the reps have given in the forum?

I have asked several times why verification information such as passport information etc was transferred to laptops. Given that I am a Meteor customer that is a perfectly relevant question that has been studiously ignored.

Quite honestly, Eircoms behaviour firstly in losing this data, the revelation that their own demonstrably inadequate internal procedure wasn't complied with (across subsidiaries) secondly in delaying reporting the fiasco the DPC and then the woefully inadequate response to their customers is quite shocking and then to find a boards rep defending this on the basis that Eircom are a big organisation and have loads of things to be looking after is quite bewildering to put it charitably!

dub45

eircom: Tony wrote: »

Hi KoolKid
if you follow this thread you can see that I have in fact responded to any emobile / meteor customer who has posted on this thread and offered to intercede where I felt I could help. I cannot answer the post you highlight by dub45 as there is no question there, just statement. This is an open forum and that is allowed.
I am not sure what you expect me to post here apart from the official and stated response from eircom. This is a serious issue and has impacted some of our customers and we are following procedures laid down to deal with this. We have offered the appropriate channels of support and have customers on Boards.ie to PM me in order that I can advise and clarify the issue where possible.
If you do wish further information on this matter please contact studyhub@eircom.net and you will receive a call back.
Tony

On the contrary there are numerous questions in the post you have referred to. I am (unfortunately) a Meteor customer and I have now asked you several questions which you have chosen to ignore. For example why was verficiation information such as passports information, utility bills transferred to laptops when there was absolutely no reason for it?


How can any Meteor customer know how their information has been treated up to now? How many laptops not yet stolen might my verification information be on? Or other personal information?

Oh can you tell us specifically how long the laptops were actually missing for before ther absence was noticed or you actually became aware of what was on them? The wording in the statement would suggest that eircom are not being totally upfront here.

And referring to this matter on the websites as "Data Protection'' is nauseatingly offensive and unforgivable in its insensitivity.

and we are following procedures laid down to deal with this

Can you tell us what procedures these are?

Who laid them down?

We have offered the appropriate channels of support

What channels of support have Eircom offered anyone so far?

And can you define appropriate for us?

As far as I can see the only thing people have been advised to do is keep an eye on their account !

Wowee amazing! Thanks Eircom. You don't even call people back - support? 'appropriate?


How can Eircom seriously expect customers to be at a financial loss in the necessary purchase of a new passport ? You couldn't invent such crassness. What highly paid PR marvel came up with that wonderful idea

witless1

Posting this for other people in the passport scenario who read my previous post.

Tony is looking into my issue separately but I got a phone call yesterday from a Meteor rep telling me they would happily pay for the replacement of my passport. That I had to pay for it first and send in the receipt complete with a letter from the passport office confirming that they recommended I change my passport. The rep wasn't aware or at least didn't mention that he was instructed to call me from Tonys internal request. Every previous call I have received they mentioned the channel my request came from (e.g. twitter, email etc.). When I mentioned what he said was completely contradictory to the rep the previous day he basically told me that she should not have said what she said. He was basically unaware of the phone call I received. I know its a big company and all that but surely they should be logging who made a call and what they said.

I do find the passport offer slightly strange though as it now has an implied failure point in the letter request. If I cannot get the passport office to issue out a letter or if the letter they do issue does not meet whatever imaginary requirements Meteor might have I could be potentially out of loss. Their response is very much in a grey area but the rep was insistent that I had to have both the receipt and the letter to claim back the money.

I mean in the scenario where a persons passport scan was compromised in their data breach surely they shouldn't be asking that individuals contact the passport office and get a letter? This should have all been done in the background and when contacting the people involved, advise them that they need to cancel their bank cards, that they need to get a new passport / drivers license issued. Not should not potentially and not maybe, the word is need.

eircom: Tony

witless1 wrote: »

Posting this for other people in the passport scenario who read my previous post.

Tony is looking into my issue separately but I got a phone call yesterday from a Meteor rep telling me they would happily pay for the replacement of my passport. That I had to pay for it first and send in the receipt complete with a letter from the passport office confirming that they recommended I change my passport. The rep wasn't aware or at least didn't mention that he was instructed to call me from Tonys internal request. Every previous call I have received they mentioned the channel my request came from (e.g. twitter, email etc.). When I mentioned what he said was completely contradictory to the rep the previous day he basically told me that she should not have said what she said. He was basically unaware of the phone call I received. I know its a big company and all that but surely they should be logging who made a call and what they said.

I do find the passport offer slightly strange though as it now has an implied failure point in the letter request. If I cannot get the passport office to issue out a letter or if the letter they do issue does not meet whatever imaginary requirements Meteor might have I could be potentially out of loss. Their response is very much in a grey area but the rep was insistent that I had to have both the receipt and the letter to claim back the money.

I mean in the scenario where a persons passport scan was compromised in their data breach surely they shouldn't be asking that individuals contact the passport office and get a letter? This should have all been done in the background and when contacting the people involved, advise them that they need to cancel their bank cards, that they need to get a new passport / drivers license issued. Not should not potentially and not maybe, the word is need.

Hi witless1
I can confirm that the information you were provided by that rep was correct and that the cost to subscribers of renewing passportswill be reimbursed. I can understand that asking for a letter to prove that a replacement passport was requested does cause more trouble to subscribers, aplolgies for this, but it is necessary to reimburse monies involved there. If there is any trouble getting this from the passport office please let me know. I wil be back to yo uon other issue you raised later.
Tony

eircom: Tony

dub45 wrote: »

On the contrary there are numerous questions in the post you have referred to. I am (unfortunately) a Meteor customer and I have now asked you several questions which you have chosen to ignore. For example why was verficiation information such as passports information, utility bills transferred to laptops when there was absolutely no reason for it?


How can any Meteor customer know how their information has been treated up to now? How many laptops not yet stolen might my verification information be on? Or other personal information?

Oh can you tell us specifically how long the laptops were actually missing for before ther absence was noticed or you actually became aware of what was on them? The wording in the statement would suggest that eircom are not being totally upfront here.

And referring to this matter on the websites as "Data Protection'' is nauseatingly offensive and unforgivable in its insensitivity.



Can you tell us what procedures these are?

Who laid them down?



What channels of support have Eircom offered anyone so far?

And can you define appropriate for us?

As far as I can see the only thing people have been advised to do is keep an eye on their account !

Wowee amazing! Thanks Eircom. You don't even call people back - support? 'appropriate?


How can Eircom seriously expect customers to be at a financial loss in the necessary purchase of a new passport ? You couldn't invent such crassness. What highly paid PR marvel came up with that wonderful idea

Hi dub45
I can absolutely understand the anger and frustration created by this incident however many of the issues you have raised I cannot answer here at this time, as I posted previously this is a serious issue and demands ful investigation.

It has been established that 404 meteor customers details were contained on these devices. To date all Meteor customer impacted by this issue should have been contacted. If you have not been contacted then your account details were not impacted and are not at risk. However if you PM me your tel no. I can investigate this further for you. Alternatively any Meteor customers who believe they may have been affected can contact us at 1800 444 085 or log on at www.meteor.ie. They will receive a call back on the matter.
I cannot expand further on why this information was on laptops when it should not have been apart from to report that this was an instance of human error and is under full investigation. Re when laptops were stolen then reported has been stated within the official and subsequent reports.
I enclose this link to the full statement at this time which also outlines the channels of contact. More information will be made available once investigation has been progressed more completely and those isue yo have raised can then be answered. This information will be made available through all channels when available.

Regarding the issue of reimbursement for passports I have just recently been advised that the cost to customers to replace passports impacted by this will be provided.
Tony

dub45

eircom: Tony wrote: »

Hi witless1
I can confirm that the information you were provided by that rep was correct and that the cost to subscribers of renewing passportswill be reimbursed. I can understand that asking for a letter to prove that a replacement passport was requested does cause more trouble to subscribers, aplolgies for this, but it is necessary to reimburse monies involved there. If there is any trouble getting this from the passport office please let me know. I wil be back to yo uon other issue you raised later.
Tony

Why exactly is it necessary? It is yet another stupid imposition by a crassly insensitive organisation on a customer who has already been seriously messed about by you people.

There is no reason why Eircom could not arrange for the passport office to invoice them directly for the replacement passports for all the people affected.
How much more crap will you people dump on customers?

So in clear English Why is it necessary?

witless1

dub45 wrote: »

Why exactly is it necessary?

I'm struggling to get my head around it as well, surely the receipt would have been enough or as you said liaise with the passport office directly. I did ask yesterday but the chap on the phone said these are the requirements that were handed to him. When I get my next callback I will be asking why this is a requirement.

witless1

This actually just came into my mail from the passport office. I mailed them yesterday after receiving my previous phone call.

Hi ******,



We would always recommend replacing the passport if your information had been compromised. Equally if your passport was in the possession of any unauthorised person for any length of time, we would recommend replacing it. I spoke to our Audit section who are going to see if they can get the office manager to sign off on a letter. I cannot confirm yet but will contact you as soon as I can.



Kind regards

*******

Their position is quiet clear from one single email, something which could have been done on behalf of the people with passport scans compromised.

dub45

witless1 wrote: »

I'm struggling to get my head around it as well, surely the receipt would have been enough or as you said liaise with the passport office directly. I did ask yesterday but the chap on the phone said these are the requirements that were handed to him. When I get my next callback I will be asking why this is a requirement.

It's a requirement because the witless goons in Eircom haven't a clue how to deal with customers who they have messed up big time. Somehow I can see 'procedure' being quoted to you very shortly:mad::mad:

By the way replacing a passport is not a trivial matter have a read of this:

http://www.dfa.ie/home/index.aspx?id=261

Your name potentially ends up on an Interpol data base thanks to those cool folk in meteor!!!!

And in case anyone might think this is all a bit alarmist:

http://www.google.ie/search?q=irish+passport+spies&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari

http://www.herald.ie/news/israeli-dubai-assassins-carried-irish-passports-2050022.html

eircom: Tony

witless1 wrote: »

This actually just came into my mail from the passport office. I mailed them yesterday after receiving my previous phone call.



Their position is quiet clear from one single email, something which could have been done on behalf of the people with passport scans compromised.

Hi witless1 dub45
Yes I can see that both a letter from passport office stating the need to replace passport then a receipt seems unusual, I am chasing an answer on this issue and should have this for you tomorrow.
Tony

dub45

eircom: Tony wrote: »

Hi witless1 dub45
Yes I can see that both a letter from passport office stating the need to replace passport then a receipt seems unusual, I am chasing an answer on this issue and should have this for you tomorrow.
Tony

If eircom had a modicum of competence they would have liaised with the passport office long before now so as to ensure thar their customers would suffer the minimum of interference.

Why was this not done?

It is obvious that the witless twit who came up with this requirement of a receipt didn't even establish whether or not the passport office issued receipts.

Why is such a mindbogglingly incompetent and insensitive person involved in such a matter as this? Does nobody internally query this idiot before this rubbish is posted here?

Did eircom at any stage report to the passport office that passport related data had been stolen and establish with the passport office what the immediate implications and costs for those affected would be?

And if they didn't then why was such a blatantly obvious action not taken ?

I have no doubt that by the end of this monumental fiasco far more will have been spent on Eircom PR than RP (replacing passports) for put upon customers.

dub45

Can anyone explain why the so called 'gesture' of compensation is not being distributed equally?

Surely all those affected are entitled to the same gesture?

As it stands those on lower priced products get less than presumably better off people who can afford to be on a higher product?

Or has anyone in Eircom actually thought of how regressive this 'gesture' is?

Presumably it will all be written off against tax in due course and the taxpayer will suffer yet again!!!

KoolKid

Money is tight. Maybe they are trying to save a few quid.
http://www.businessworld.ie/livenews.htm?a=2908282

dub45

eircom: Tony wrote: »

Hi dub45
I can absolutely understand the anger and frustration created by this incident however many of the issues you have raised I cannot answer here at this time, as I posted previously this is a serious issue and demands ful investigation.

It has been established that 404 meteor customers details were contained on these devices. To date all Meteor customer impacted by this issue should have been contacted. If you have not been contacted then your account details were not impacted and are not at risk. However if you PM me your tel no. I can investigate this further for you. Alternatively any Meteor customers who believe they may have been affected can contact us at 1800 444 085 or log on at www.meteor.ie. They will receive a call back on the matter.
I cannot expand further on why this information was on laptops when it should not have been apart from to report that this was an instance of human error and is under full investigation. Re when laptops were stolen then reported has been stated within the official and subsequent reports.
I enclose this link to the full statement at this time which also outlines the channels of contact. More information will be made available once investigation has been progressed more completely and those isue yo have raised can then be answered. This information will be made available through all channels when available.

Regarding the issue of reimbursement for passports I have just recently been advised that the cost to customers to replace passports impacted by this will be provided.
Tony

Tony if you are going to provide links will you provide links that answer the question? There is no reference in the link you have provided as to when the laptops were stolen - in fact it is studiously avoided! So why did you link to this?

It appears to me that Eircom don't actually know when these laptops were stolen.

And are Eircom now officially claiming "human error" as part of the reason for this lamentable fiasco?

witless1

dub45 wrote: »

Did eircom at any stage report to the passport office that passport related data had been stolen and establish with the passport office what the immediate implications and costs for those affected would be?

+1 on this.

Similarly with the banks, particularly anyone with a debit card. I go back to my conversation with the bank official I had on the phone who was "disgusted" at the lack of information provided to me about what to do in such a situation. Their guidelines are crystal clear and the funny thing is when I got my original phone call I was told that my bank had been contacted and advised of the situation. If that was true, then the bank would have given very specific instructions to Eircom to inform customers that they must cancel and reissue their cards. I don't think the banks were informed because the agent I spoke to said she heard the news on the radio that morning, surely they would have been told to expect a lot more card cancellations that day. I have received a lot of misinformation and at least two outright lies (recovering the laptop & informing my bank) since this fiasco started.

Also, reading the link Dub45 posted:

If you have a poor passport record, ie have lost two or more passports, it is likely that only very limited passport facilities will be given for specific travel purposes.

This effectively counts as a lost passport and one strike, as a compromised passport is effectively a stolen passport in their eyes. With the law of averages I am going to lose at least one passport over the course of my life which puts me in a difficult position, particularly as I travel for work.

eircom: Tony

dub45 wrote: »

Tony if you are going to provide links will you provide links that answer the question? There is no reference in the link you have provided as to when the laptops were stolen - in fact it is studiously avoided! So why did you link to this?

It appears to me that Eircom don't actually know when these laptops were stolen.

And are Eircom now officially claiming "human error" as part of the reason for this lamentable fiasco?

No dub45, that was my own phrase.
I provided the link as this is the official statement regarding this issue. I have no further information at this time and it may help anyone who has not already seen this statement.
As a meteor customer you would have received a call had your details been impacted by this issue. If you do wish to follow up on this you should contact the channels provided where information specific to your own case can be provided. I have been advised that the theft of the laptops took place end of December / beginning of January. This information has been made public.
As I also advised in my previous post we will post any further statement information here but at present this is the extent of my info on the issue.
Tony

dub45

eircom: Tony wrote: »

dub45 wrote: »

Tony if you are going to provide links will you provide links that answer the question? There is no reference in the link you have provided as to when the laptops were stolen - in fact it is studiously avoided! So why did you link to this?

It appears to me that Eircom don't actually know when these laptops were stolen.

And are Eircom now officially claiming "human error" as part of the reason for this lamentable fiasco?

No dub45, that was my own phrase.
I provided the link as this is the official statement regarding this issue. I have no further information at this time and it may help anyone who has not already seen this statement.
As a meteor customer you would have received a call had your details been impacted by this issue. If you do wish to follow up on this you should contact the channels provided where information specific to your own case can be provided. I have been advised that the theft of the laptops took place end of December / beginning of January. This information has been made public.
As I also advised in my previous post we will post any further statement information here but at present this is the extent of my info on the issue.
Tony

So is it the case that eircom don't know the exact dates on which the laptops were stolen?

dub45

witless1 wrote: »

+1 on this.

Similarly with the banks, particularly anyone with a debit card. I go back to my conversation with the bank official I had on the phone who was "disgusted" at the lack of information provided to me about what to do in such a situation. Their guidelines are crystal clear and the funny thing is when I got my original phone call I was told that my bank had been contacted and advised of the situation. If that was true, then the bank would have given very specific instructions to Eircom to inform customers that they must cancel and reissue their cards. I don't think the banks were informed because the agent I spoke to said she heard the news on the radio that morning, surely they would have been told to expect a lot more card cancellations that day. I have received a lot of misinformation and at least two outright lies (recovering the laptop & informing my bank) since this fiasco started.

Also, reading the link Dub45 posted:



This effectively counts as a lost passport and one strike, as a compromised passport is effectively a stolen passport in their eyes. With the law of averages I am going to lose at least one passport over the course of my life which puts me in a difficult position, particularly as I travel for work.

Hi witless - I was genuinely wary of posting that link as I did not wish to further upset people like yourself however I felt that it was better that the very issues you raise should be made known to people.

It is now lamentably obvious that eircom made absolutely no effort at any stage to gauge the impact of their failure in this matter on their customers let alone put any support in place to help them. Even a basic to-do-immediately list doesn't seem to have been considered.

This appalling quote from an Eircom spokesman (Irish Examiner) sums up nicely their attitude

Eircom spokesman Paul Bradley said the delay in reporting the breach was because it took longer than expected to determine if the laptops were encrypted and then to work out what information they contained. "Eircom apologises to customers for the incident. It’s extremely regrettable," he said. He added that there was no evidence of the exposed data being used by a third party and said the breach was "small, relatively, in terms of our customer base".

My emphasis! The breach was small relatively!!!!!!! Incredible attitude shown up here - over 6000 people affected but sure it's only small RELATIVELY!!!!!

By the way the same article claims that a further 45 unencrypted laptops were discovered!!! God knows what information was on those or who could have accessed them at any time?

http://irishexaminer.com/ireland/eircom-apologises-for-loss-of-customer-data-183456.html

witless1

I was aware that repeatedly losing official state endorsed identification would have penalties, I wasn't aware however how low the bar was set I'm hoping it won't count against me as the original reply I received from the passport office told me that I should send back my passport and a letter explaining why I want a replacement. It probably will put a tick beside my passport count but compromised is probably seen as stolen in their eyes, and rightly so.


45 more laptops? So much for the encryption policy :eek:

ninjasurfer1

Slightly off topic:

dub45 wrote: »

http://irishexaminer.com/ireland/eircom-apologises-for-loss-of-customer-data-183456.html

From the article above:

'communications companies were subject to higher security standards than other industries'

Any idea on why this is? I'd have assumed the financial/banking sector, etc, would have been the most strictly regulated??

dub45

ninjasurfer1 wrote: »

Slightly off topic:



From the article above:

'communications companies were subject to higher security standards than other industries'

Any idea on why this is? I'd have assumed the financial/banking sector, etc, would have been the most strictly regulated??

It would be interesting to know why ok - but if the reality is as we have seen if the security standards are neither enforced or complied with then they are totally irrelevant.

You would think that any well managed company would not need legislation to force it to protect its data surely? If the will and basic competence is not there then the law will simply be ignored.

Oddjob

My god, I didn't understand the seriousness of this until I read Dub45's posts. How can Eircom let this happen?

I'm not an eircom customer but I once sent a text to meteor number. Does this mean my holiday home in Courttown is now full of Nigerian fraudsters?

I've been ringing random bars in Seattle to see if students are presenting my passport as ID but nothing has shown up yet, then I remembered I don't have a passport, then Larry Murphy lost his at the same time.

And all through this, eircom have done nothing, they have no idea where Larry Murphy is, or if he has been texting the same Meteor numbers that I might have.

Where's my bailout?

I'm a victim as much as everyone else, I realise I have to pay the mortgage on my 700K 1 bed apartment in Swords, but if I knew they were going to de-regulate the taxi market, I wouldn't have bought 3 villas in Sunny Beach.

It's one law for the rich, cosy cartel etc.....

Dan133269

^^^^^^^^^^^^ What in the name of sweet jesus are you smoking, Oddjob? I'd like some of it.

Back on topic, are any of you willing to go to court over this once Meteor's position becomes clear, if they're not going to make amends?
I haven't been affected myself but it is enraging to think of what they have done and their flippant attitude about the whole thing.

And that quote by the guy saying the information hasn't been used by any 3rd party, it's a bit like lending your bike to a friend who then leaves it unlocked and it gets stolen, but the friend re-assures you "don't worry the thief isn't cycling your bike".

dub45

Dan133269 wrote: »

^^^^^^^^^^^^ What in the name of sweet jesus are you smoking, Oddjob? I'd like some of it.

Back on topic, are any of you willing to go to court over this once Meteor's position becomes clear, if they're not going to make amends?
I haven't been affected myself but it is enraging to think of what they have done and their flippant attitude about the whole thing.

Enraging is a pretty appropriate word ok. The simple fact is that companies know that most of their customers don't have the financial resources to go to court and they rely on this to treat them with the contempt that we have seen on display here day after day.

Dan133269 wrote: »

And that quote by the guy saying the information hasn't been used by any 3rd party, it's a bit like lending your bike to a friend who then leaves it unlocked and it gets stolen, but the friend re-assures you "don't worry the thief isn't cycling your bike".

Yes I have been thinking about that statement and the simple fact is that it is baseless and designed to mislead totally.

Do they expect people using stolen identity information or credit cards or debit cards to complete some sort of survey as to where they got the information? And at at the time that statement was made neither the banks nor the passport office had been informed of the thefts even though a considerable amount of time had passed so lets say the banks or the ppoffice had begun to notice something even then they would have nowhere to connect it with.

Eircom's behavior in all of this is quite shocking and remember this quote:

http://www.scmagazineuk.com/eircom-slammed-for-laptop-and-data-loss/article/227433/

Irish Data Protection Commissioner Billy Hawkes has called the loss of Eircom's laptops "one of the most serious breaches" his office has seen.

Speaking to the RTE radio station in Ireland, Hawkes said the nature of the data, the long delay in telling people about it being compromised and the fact that it involved a communications company, which is subject to more stringent security standards, made the case particularly serious.

And they can't even arrange to replace people's passports without them being out of pocket and seriously inconvenienced what a shower of incompetents.

Johnboy1951

During the internal investigation it emerged that the two laptops contained personal data for some current and former eMobile and Meteor customers

This implies to me that personal data was not destroyed when customers became 'former customers'.
It seems from this that there is a lot of information being held that should not be there at all.
I have no idea what the DP regulation is regarding this practice. If anyone has info it would be gladly received.

I am trying to get my head around something else too ...... laptops were stolen, one from an employee's home and two from an office.
All of those laptops were supposed to be encrypted, as I understand it. So I can understand that there would not be a huge 'flap' initially, as the data on the encrypted devices would be safe from misuse.

It seems that shortly afterwards it was discovered that the laptops were not encrypted.
I do not understand how this was determined.
The laptops were not recovered at that time, the 'rule' was that all must be encrypted, yet the company seemed to know these devices were not encrypted. How?


There appears to be something very very odd about those events and the determination of the lack of encryption on the devices.

Later they add that a further 45 or so laptops were not encrypted either!

Who is responsible within the organisation for the protection of customer data, and was it their failure that this happened? Are they now out on the street looking for a job with no recommendation from their previous employer? If not why not? Surely such a failure to perform would be subject to summary dismissal?


Relating back to the 'former customers' ........ and that fact that assurances from the company are worth absolutely nothing - based on their actions and then reaction to these incidents ........ how do we know that all former customers who are no longer contactable by the company are protected?

Those people would not have worried if they read about these breaches, but would more than likely have sighed with relief that they had left that provider.
Yet it appears that their data may be compromised also and they have no way to know about it. In fact the way I read that quote above, it implied to me that the majority of the lost data may have related to former customers.

Two months now since the thefts, and no clarity has been brought to the situation.

We do not know if the official rule about encryption has been completely ignored or for how long ....... it certainly seems to have been ignored in at least 48 cases that have been admitted.

We have no idea how the information that backs up statements from the company has been gathered or how reliable that is. Without such info we cannot make a judgement on the reliability of those statements. If one was to take the responses reported in this thread as typical, then IMO there is little or nothing reliable in any of the statements issued to date.

It seems it is just too much to expect that we might ever hear the real truth of what has been going on - or not going on that should have been!

In the meantime there are a lot of people with serious concerns about their privacy, personal data security etc etc

mickzer

eircom: Tony wrote: »

Hi dub45


It has been established that 404 meteor customers details were contained on these devices.
Tony

Appropiate number, that....

http://www.google.ie/imgres?imgurl=http://www.404errorpages.com/images/image015.png&imgrefurl=http://www.404errorpages.com/&h=513&w=561&sz=47&tbnid=dPCKIvgCUdxWDM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=98&prev=/search%3Fq%3D404%2Berror%2Bpage%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=404+error+page&docid=G_yjRCS7ujonOM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LqBLT5CTE4W2hAeAlu2kDg&ved=0CHkQ9QEwBg&dur=45

mickzer.

witless1

I got an email back from the passport office today.

Dear *****



Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful in my attempts to get my office manager to sign off on a letter; his reasons being that the dispute is between you and Meteor and we cannot give any recommendations. He checked this with a higher authority in the Department of Foreign Affairs.



I have racked my brains trying to come up with some information to help you and perhaps you should direct Meteor to the Irish Data Protection Act of 2003:

http://www.dataprotection.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=796#2C



You’ll have to give a read through it (it is divided into sections so it should be easy to find a part that suits your situation) but it is basically all about the protection of personal information.



I’m really sorry I couldn’t be of more help. Hopefully you’ll have some success if you start quoting parts of the Data Protection Act to them.



Kind regards

*****

They are not in a position to offer a letter to me (or any customer) as it is a dispute between Meteor and the customer. This was even checked at a higher level which is incredible to think that Meteor would be making such requirements WITHOUT bothering to check themselves if it was feasible.