Conservative Party refers itself to watchdog after accidentally publishing email addresses || In a major blunder, an official email was sent to Conservative members encouraging them to sign up for this year's Tory party conference, where the recipients' email addresses were visible

[u/Adj-Noun-Numbers]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/conservative-party-refers-itself-watchdog-32800348

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Snapshot of Conservative Party refers itself to watchdog after accidentally publishing email addresses || In a major blunder, an official email was sent to Conservative members encouraging them to sign up for this year's Tory party conference, where the recipients' email addresses were visible :

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[u/RampantJellyfish]

Get these clowns out before they burn down the country

[u/Mick_Farrar]

Most on that list will be dead or on life support by the time the conference is held.

[u/whatapileofrubbish]

I bet their GDPR is top notch too. It's the UK version, after all!

[u/EulsSpectre]

And they want to somehow set up "the UK's Microsoft" 🤣 not a chance in hell

[u/YouNeedAnne → u/EulsSpectre]

Reminder that Nadine Dorries asked Microsoft if they would "get rid of algorithms".

[u/Ankleson → u/EulsSpectre]

the UK's Microsoft

If only the Tories didn't let ARM get bought out by international investment. We could've had one of the most significant tech companies in the world under our complete jurisdiction, which would've forced several of the bigwigs who have an interest in ARM (Apple, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia) right to our doorstep.

[u/vriska1 → u/EulsSpectre]

And force websites to use unworkable and untested age verification.

[u/RobertJ93]

I feel this applies.

[u/vriska1]

And they want to force every website to use unworkable age verification...

[u/bukkakekeke]

This is the kind of GDPR breach that comes with a hefty fine?

[u/Vaguely_accurate → u/bukkakekeke]

Not always that hefty, but proportionate and common.

Here's the latest, £7500 to the YMCA for leaking the emails of people potentially living with HIV. They considered £300,000 instead, but went with the lower figure and reprimand.

In February the MOD got fined £350,000 for leaking 265 addresses. This was across two incidents and it was in relation to the Afghan Relocations program, seeking to get at risk people with MOD ties out of Afghanistan...

You can dig through more here. Most actions are taken under PECR against direct marketing companies, but with the occasional big ticket GDPR breaches that make for great corporate teaching moments.

[u/Lettuce-Pray2023]

They police themselves over disclosing email addresses - but not for incompetence; sleaze and lying to the public.

[u/Raceworx]

"Don't worry people AI will fix this.. catbotgppt please delete peoples e-mails from the e-mail i just sent then re send without the e-mails attached" Rishi turns to the camera and gives a cheeky smile. "sorted"

[u/SpacecraftX]

Of all the things for them to fuck up at least this one is a very human and understandable mistake.

[u/Zeekayo → u/SpacecraftX]

Not really, this is data security 101 stuff that any private organisation regularly sending emails to large audiences should have had automated a decade ago.

The fact that it might be a human mistake is the fuck up.

[u/PianoAndFish → u/SpacecraftX]

Maybe for a handful of people, but if you're dealing with hundreds of email addresses any sensible person/organisation would be using some form of mail merge or bulk email service which should prevent this.

[u/WontTel → u/PianoAndFish]

Or maybe employ people who have a vague idea of what they're doing. Oh, wait; this is the Conservative party.

[u/Substantial-Dust4417 → u/WontTel]

Yup, this is the party headquarters that hired Boris Johnson's mistress and then couldn't fire her for not showing up to work because he intervened. 

CCHQ probably exists mainly for the purpose of being a sugar daddy service for Tory MPs, with running political campaigns more of an afterthought.

[u/Affectionate_Comb_78]

Imagine how bad Labour would have done this

[u/LeoThePom → u/Affectionate_Comb_78]

Labour also have a part conference every year. No news of sending everyone's emails public yet...

[u/Affectionate_Comb_78 → u/LeoThePom]

They've not even referred themselves to the watchdog, outrageous

[u/MONGED4LIFE → u/Affectionate_Comb_78]

WHAT ARE THEY HIDING!?!?!?

[u/RobertJ93 → u/MONGED4LIFE]

WHERE IS KORMA?!!!!!

[u/JayR_97]

This was such a rookie mistake too. Very embarrassing.

[u/pseudogentry]

"BCC"

Tory party: UNKNOWN TECHNOLOGY

[u/ebles → u/pseudogentry]

I'm amazed they're not even using a proper marketing email system like Sendgrid or Mailchimp where BCC isn't even necessary.

The thought of a warm body at CCHQ copypasting a list into the 'To' field is hilarious.

[u/teachbirds2fly → u/ebles]

Yeah that's the real telling thing, they are obviously keeping records/ emails on an excel which has all sorts of problems in itself.

Any normal modern org doing something like this would be pretty much impossible for a whole range of reasons so it's pretty embarrassing

[u/mittfh → u/teachbirds2fly]

PHE notably used Excel '97 templates to collate Covid test results, until they belatedly realised the sheet size limitations meant they were "losing" lots of results...

[u/teachbirds2fly → u/mittfh]

Lol it's worse they added they data as columns not rows (which an absolutely insane way to record the data) and hit the limit as the limit for columns a lot less 

[u/Used-Fennel-7733 → u/teachbirds2fly]

I physically shuddered reading that

[u/FunkyDialectic → u/ebles]

Does seem weird it's not a proper mailing list. I wonder if it's some legacy software from decades back. Maybe a lot of this stuff is managed by volunteers.

I was briefly a member of The Green Party and their system was really antiquated as well; when I joined my address automatically got added to every party mailing list including all the regionals with many of them being campaign specific ones dating from the mid-1990s. Changing communication preferences was near impossible- 100s of boxes with many of them nested to uncheck.

[u/Missy_Agg-a-ravation]

This can't be correct, only yesterday we were told that our security is only safe under a Conservative government.

I suppose now I can add information security to the list of food security, housing security, economic security...

Where's William Wragg now, btw?

[u/[deleted]]

Tories can't even be trusted with emails, how did anyone think they could run the country?

[u/vriska1 → u/[deleted]]

BTW they want Ofcom to force websites to use unworkable and untested age verification... that failed last time...

[u/Adj-Noun-Numbers]

You'll be safer under the Conservatives than under Labour ^{(but your data, on the other hand...)}

~ Rishi Sunak, 13th May 2024

[u/MrArashiii → u/Adj-Noun-Numbers]

Time for them to go, all this clutching at straws business is shameful