I have four, hardly been used, laptops for sale.

One owner, many handlers and unencrypted.

All come with complete access to their former owner’s customers’ details.

This one off offer includes:

• One embarrassed bank and
• 10,000 exposed customer details

You get exclusive access to customer:

• Credit history
• Medical backgrounds for life insurance quotes,
• Personal pension plan details
• Dates of birth
• Addresses
• Bank account details

Laptops were stolen between June and October 2007 and have been well polished since then.

We have only used customer details once in the interim – we were testing out a new partnership with our Nigerian friends.

Mr. Aba Wada Anna Livia needed a legitimate Irish bank account into which he could lodge $55 million of his Ministry’s funds. We have been assured as to the legitimacy of this transfer and we will gladly arrange a meeting for you if you would like to pursue a similar venture.

You will, of course, be expected to travel to Nigeria and surrender your passport while the negotiations for your release for the transfer of funds are taking place.

Contact Bank of Ireland Head Office, the Financial Regulator or the Data Protection Commissioner for verification of this offer! (Or you could just look here or here!)

Bank of Ireland is a tied agent of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service and it would like to express its gratitude to the IBTS for passing on its experience in losing a laptop containing customers’ details.

Bank of Ireland also acknowledges that the IBTS laptop was encrypted (with the data of over 171,000 blood donors) but decided that it would like to see what the fallout would be in losing not one but 4 laptops and by also ensuring that the material was unencrypted and readily accessible to all.

And the double whammy …. to see what the fallout would be if it waited six months before they told anyone about it!

For all that I’m grateful …..

Back to business  …. four laptops, lots of information, any offers?

I’ll even throw in an insurance quote!! I can’t do fairer than that!

• a pupil has been absent from school for a cumulative total of twenty days or more
• a pupil’s name is to be removed from the school register for any reason
• a pupil has been suspended for a cumulative total of six or more days
• a principal is concerned about a student’s attendance
• the school has expelled a pupil.

School have the option to provide the required information in written format or online at SchoolReturn.ie

The school return site asks for a lot of information about the pupil and his/her parents. Having read today’s newspaper my concerns about providing this information online have been heightened.

It appears the NEWB IT Manager has been fiddling tenders etc. with a supplier and has intercepted confidential emails between the Financial Controller and the Chief Executive Officer.

This leads me to question how safe is the information under the control of the NEWB. Who’s to say that this personal information won’t appear in the public domain in the future? IT security is always an issue and those in charge of sensitive material have to be proactively responsible.

The National Educational Welfare Board doesn’t instil confidence in me. The pupils in need of help still seem to be falling through the cracks …. school dropout numbers are still as high as ever. The early years of the NEWB were a mess …. schools that reported pupils exceeding the 20 days of absence were told that the information had ‘fallen into a dark hole’ and that the information provided wasn’t acted upon.

NEWB ….. get your act together!