I suspect they were looking for unsavoury pictures. Probably the web
history files have been visited, too. They would then have had a coup under
the Sexual Offences Act and been famous.
Wise people with laptops use a boot password as a further layer of
protection. Wiser people still do not visit less salubrious sites, of
course!
Six weeks to replace a keyboard module shows an odd concept of service,
doesn't it?
Has the Data Protection Act been breached? Unlikely. But will she buy
another machine from that vendor? Never.
-----Original Message-----
From: This list is for those interested in Data Protection issues
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Nick Landau
Sent: 16 October 2006 14:37
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [data-protection] "Unauthorised" access by repairer to computer
datasets
On uk.legal.moderated a lot of hot air has been generated by a complaint
from a person that when she sent in her laptop to a "reputable" company for
repair of her keyboard.
According to her:
"Before I sent it, I and a computer expert made 100% certain my Windows XP
Profile was set with a password, it was the only Administrator account, and
that there was a basic Guest account set up for the manufacturer to use, in
the unlikely event they needed to run any test software. I cannot stress
enough that it was not possible to access my documents without the password.
When the laptop returned to me, the password on my account had been
*removed* without my consent. No password was set. This requires hacking
or special in-house software.
Extremely suspicious, I had the expert assess if any of my documents had
been accessed.
On 3 isolated time periods over the 6 weeks they had the laptop, my private
photographs, videos, and only my private photos and vids, had been
accessed."
I am not clear how one would know that the fault in a laptop is only the
keyboard. With an ordinary PC one could substitute another keyboard and be
sure, but I have no idea how one could isolate the keyboard.
Of course, really sensitive items I would have thought that one would delete
and backup.
I have seen this item
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/acom/teaching/leg/Legal_Issues_lecture_1.pdf
regarding the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (and later?).
Nick Landau
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