No issue with that if it was only names and addresses. You can in any event find this type of information freely over the internet. Just go to your local city council and do a valuation roll lookup. Go to the white pages and enter a surname and town. You will get names and addresses and there are no law preventing this information from being displayed.
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Afrihost client data leaked: company apologises and explains
- Thread starter jes
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No issue with that if it was only names and addresses. You can in any event find this type of information freely over the internet. Just go to your local city council and do a valuation roll lookup. Go to the white pages and enter a surname and town. You will get names and addresses and there are no law preventing this information from being displayed.
I never saw that link - which I regret now so we could have resolved this much earlier. If that's the case then it may be some comfort that nothing significant has been done with that information as yet
Definitely a FAIL from our side - we're truly sorry about this
No response to my post which came before these?
Unhappy1
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I never saw that link - which I regret now so we could have resolved this much earlier. If that's the case then it may be some comfort that nothing significant has been done with that information as yet
Initially no one knew who the accounts were associated with and were pointing fingers at telkom. See here : http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/544781-TelkomZA?p=11612079&viewfull=1#post11612079
I wasnt trying to say its right or wrong, was just providing more information.
DarkImpact
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Has anybody read POPI? Would this have been in contravention of the bill if it wasn't for the 1 year period that is given for people to comply?
We're glad to hear that other agree that the impact will not be significant if any, but at the end of the day we still have to account for our breach of our clients trust. We definitely know never to do something like this again and we'll be double and triple cautious to ensure that privacy is absolutely paramount.
Our client data is stored on encrypted data base and is always hidden. We also recently upgraded our systems to no longer send ClientZone passwords in plain text. As far as day to day security - we believe this is still rock-solid.
This was a particular internal exercise and the information was never designed for any purpose other that generating internal maps of geographical clusters of our clients base - to look at what further services and added value we could bring to clients.
I'll take your word for it - but hopefully you are doing the right thing and destroying that information
POPI is more focussed on misuse of private information for marketing purposes or "selling lists" to marketers. While the Act provides for the safeguarding and best practice for securing information and private records - I don't this particular issue would fall under malicious or intentional misuse of client data.
Either way, we still accept full responsibility and we are committed to ensuring that something like this will NEVER happen again
Yes, in terms of the new POPI act this would have been a classic example. They would not have ended up in court, but the regulator could have fined the company up to R1m per record that leaked if they found the company was negligent with storing and managing the data.
MrGray
Honorary Master
POPI is more focussed on misuse of private information for marketing purposes or "selling lists" to marketers. While the Act provides for the safeguarding and best practice for securing information and private records - I don't this particular issue would fall under malicious or intentional misuse of client data.
Either way, we still accept full responsibility and we are committed to ensuring that something like this will NEVER happen again
POPI is about much more than just marketing and specifies what personal data might be held, for how long, for what purposes and in what format, as well as safeguards that are to be put in place with that data.
I see I missed that thread in my searches - we're truly sorry for the confusion. If we'd have known about it we could have sorted this our earlier
Biscuit1018
Expert Member
I am an Afrihost client but they dont manage my line.
BTW you mention the leak of property values as more severe?
Of course property values are indeed public as is the address and the Deed Holders name
If you own your house (and not via a Trust) there is a lot of info avail)
At the end of the day I would have been peeved if I had been exposed
However the damage seems low...
They apologised
They have hopefully learned their lesson
I think that it would not necessarily apply. There was no intent to use the information for any other purpose other than internal use. Believe me, something like this will not be happening again
Aside from the breach of privacy, the publication of the list has also given Afrihost's competitors insight as to the extent of Afrihost's bundled DSL subscriber base, along with a shopping list of potential customers to be targeted/persuaded to migrate away.
Definitely a black eye for Afrihost... and I am still waiting for a formal notification of the information breach - would have liked to be informed first before finding this out on a public forum.
Definitely a black eye for Afrihost... and I am still waiting for a formal notification of the information breach - would have liked to be informed first before finding this out on a public forum.
Either way, we regret that the info was shared in any way through us, but we're grateful that nothing very compromising was shared and we believe that exposure was limited
Lord Nikon6
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ah well, so since you say it is people with managed lines from afrihost, I know I am on the list. Perhaps some guys from anonymous will come have a beer with me now...been trying to join those guys for ages 
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To the NSA reading this post, I am only kidding kay...
...To the NSA reading this post, I am only kidding kay...
True, but it would be unreasonable to assume that companies would not use information internally for management and internal planning purposes. That was the only intent here, and the leak was an unfortunate mistake.
Many companies will continue to use information like this for the same purposes after POPI comes into effect.