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Personal data exposed on website

by admin on Jun.19, 2009, under Online Lives, PC users, Technology, failure system, signatures of recipients

Personal data including the signatures of recipients has been exposed to those tracking deliveries on the Parcelforce website, the BBC has discovered.

A failure in the system allowed people using the mail tracing service access to the name, postcode and signature of various addressees.

The breakdown put Parcelforce at risk of breaching data protection rules.

The delivery service, part of the Royal Mail Group, apologised. It said the problem had been resolved.

Fail track

Customers sending a package with Parcelforce Worldwide are given a reference number which allows them to track the progress of the delivery.

However, when the BBC News website entered reference numbers into the “track and trace” feature on the Parcelforce website, a series of unconnected deliveries was revealed.

Although the same reference number was typed in, the specifics of parcels with other reference details were displayed.

Within the space of 30 minutes, the system handed out details of parcels in Cleveland, Swansea and even awaiting customs clearance en route from Shanghai.

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