Northern Ireland Government Website Displayed Users’ Information in Public Searches

In an example of truly terrible website design, a site set up by the government of Northern Ireland to encourage people to learn the Irish language, has been temporarily shut down after it was revealed that users’ private and personal data was indexed in public searches.

If you visited the Líofa website and conducted a regular search in the site’s search field, you or anyone else for that matter could have easily searched through the private and personal details of users stored on the site’s server.

According to the BBC, names, home addresses and email addresses could be searched for on the site, among other private details.

In a statement, the Culture Minister of Northern Ireland Carál Nί Chuilίn said:

“I am very sorry that some participants’ names and other information which they had provided could have been found using the website’s search facility.

“While it is disturbing that this should have been the case, at this stage there is no evidence that this information has been accessed or misused in any way.”

The authorities are now looking into how the problem occurred, drafting in IT security experts to figure out exactly how such private information was so publicly accessible.

Source: BBC News