Newcastle City Councilhas said it
accidentally put 54,000 credit- and debit-card details on a
computer system that could be accessed externally.
The council has today admitted it inappropriately released up to
54,000 credit- and debit-card details covering transactions between
February 2006 and April 2007, covering payments to the council
including council tax, business rates, parking fines, and rent
payments.
In a statement on its
website, the council said the information released was in an
encrypted file and included names, addresses and credit-card
numbers. However, the council stressed that no details of either
Pin codes or security-code numbers were included in the file that
was inappropriately released.
The lapse was discovered during a test of the council's IT
security. Following this audit, Newcastle said it closed down the
computer servers concerned, and it said that security had been
tightened and reinforced.
Newcastle City Council Chief Executive, Ian Stratford, said, "We
very much regret that this situation has developed. There has been
no indication of any fraud or loss. We are now fully confident that
our systems are properly robust, so we are continuing to receive
payments by credit and debit cards."
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