Your Personal Information $39.95!

Yes, in fact thousands of bank account details are being sold in the street markets of Lagos, Nigeria.

Much of the banking and personal information belongs to people in the UK, and the data was taken off of hard drives that were “recycled” (people donating their old laptops and computers).

Since “delete” doesn’t really mean delete – erase all traces of everything never to be found again – it is pretty easy for anyone to strip juicy data from an old hard drive.

Most users don’t know this…and they can’t be bothered to really learn how to really erase data. Very few people (talking home users here) will actually know where to begin, research the software they need etc.

The companies that handle used hardware are actually (in the UK) required to delete personal data from each machine when it is no longer required.

The Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK government’s regulatory office dealing with data protection, said companies had a legal requirement to delete people’s personal information from their computers when it was no longer needed.

So if it’s on sale in Lagos, what happened?

They should go one step further – when a used computer is donated or sold to/through another company, your personal data is never needed. Boom – they should wipe the drives clean before anything, and be held accountable if they aren’t.

Trust me, there are many cheap/free pirated copies of Windows XP floating around Lagos, we don’t need to spare the operating systems in exchange for our bank accounts.

Full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4790293.stm