The Labour party has formally reported members of Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign team to the Information Commissioner, accusing them of hacking into the party’s membership database
The Labour party has formally reported members of Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign team to the Information Commissioner, accusing them of hacking into the party’s membership database, the BBC has learned.
The allegations were made against two members of Sir Starmer’s team – one of them is his compliance official.
They were passed to the Information Commissioner’s Office on Thursday.
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “The Labour Party takes its legal responsibilities for data protection – and the security and integrity of its data and systems – extremely seriously.
“We have written to all leadership candidates to remind them of their obligations under the law and to seek assurances that membership data will not be misused.”
The comments came after the BBC reported that Labour had accused members of Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign team of hacking into the party’s membership database.
The allegations are serious, and the confrontation has engulfed the campaign in bitter recrimination.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is the UK’s independent body set up to uphold information rights.
Last night the commission simply confirmed it had received a report of a membership database breach, and would make inquiries.
You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.
Late last night, Sir Starmer wrote to the party flatly denied any wrongdoing by his team members.
He insisted they were investigating a means of penetrating the database – called Dialogue – with no intention to use it.
Why Sir Keir Starmer’s team would be testing the database or investigating means of penetration is anyone’s guess and leaves more questions unanswered than answered
Labour said it had written to Sir Keir and his three leadership rivals to “remind them of their obligations under the law and to seek assurances that membership data will not be misused”.
“The Labour Party takes its legal responsibilities for data protection – and the security and integrity of its data and systems – extremely seriously.”
A Labour spokesman said: “The Labour party takes its legal responsibilities for data protection – and the security and integrity of its data and systems – extremely seriously. We have written to all leadership candidates to remind them of their obligations under the law and to seek assurances that membership data will not be misused.”
What is data scraping?
Data scraping, in its most general form, refers to a technique in which a computer program extracts data from output generated from another program. Data scraping is commonly manifest in web scraping, the process of using an application to extract valuable information from a website. Read more…
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