PII! PII! C’mon everybooody!

Hokkay.

Screw-ups happen. That’s true. We all f***k up from time to time, and that is okay. That is, unless someone dies or gets maimed in some horrifying way. Or similar outcomes of foul-ups.

We talked some about what the US government likes to call PII (pee-eye-eye) here, and about the importance of keeping it to yourself, not letting it out of your site, lest it fall violently into the hands that are known as “wrong”. I.e. The Wrong Hands.

Well, you might take every kind of precaution, and unfortunately it could still all go wrong. The US has had its share of scandals concerning release of personal information, just like the UK had a couple of years back as well.

Now it’s Scandinavia’s turn, it seems, with Norway’s version of the IRS sending 8 of the country’s mediahouses lists of name’s and income tax figures. That’s not the bad part – those lists are actually public domain in Norway. What is rather more dire is that the lists, in addition to names and amounts also contained the PIDNs (SSN’s) of about 4 MILLION people.

Huh.

They say it’s because the lists were formatted wrong. Oh. Well. That makes everything better then.

No.

Now they fear identity theft. Imagine that.

So what’s the moral of the story? Well… Just what we’ve said before. Trust no one. And that just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.