photo credit: 2popcornmovies.blogspot.com
Facebook was left red-faced
earlier this month after the social network giant suffered a data protection
mishap during a cybersecurity conference hosted in London, according to
reports.
The blunder occurred when Facebook
misplaced an email list of the summit’s participants.
The privacy breach was not at any
old seminar though, it happened at an event entitled “Cyber security: the next
50 years”, which was hosted by Facebook and The Fulbright Commission, the US-UK
scholarship programme, at their offices in Brock Street.
The panel discussion was headed by
Gail Kent, Facebook’s global public policy lead on security. Fulbright scholars
and security experts Jamie Collier, Cameron Colquhoun and Karen Renaud also
spoke and the talk was followed by a networking reception.
But the next day guests were
shocked to receive an email from Chris Horry, chief operating officer at the
Fulbright Commission, which has been forwarded to Capital.
…
Attendees initially assumed the
message was an ironic joke, given the theme of the event, and wondered
whether a Facebook employee had grabbed the guest list in view of the
company’s track record on this issue.
“Unfortunately, I have to inform
you that in the course of yesterday evening’s cyber security event, a printed
guest list with the name of the invitee and email address has been mislaid,” an
email via Horry to participants read. “Whilst we do not expect that the list has been
misappropriated, we cannot exclude that possibility. Please rest assured we
very much value your data privacy and sincerely apologise for this unfortunate
incident.”
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