Privacy blunder shuts online pornography consultation – Telegraph.

The online consultation opened on Thursday and invited views from the public on what controls broadband providers should offer or impose to prevent children accessing pornography.

It collected views on an array of sensitive subjects, such as explicit material online, parental responsibilities, cyberbullying and censorship.
Once they had completed the questionnaire, visitors were, however, able to view the names, email addresses, passwords and consultation responses of others, The Register first reported.
Department for Education technicians shut down the website this morning after the privacy failure was reported to the Information Commissioner, Britain’s data protection watchdog.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Education said officials had been in contact with the regulator and an investigation was underway.

“We are aware of a technical problem affecting our Parental Internet Controls consultation website and have taken the site down while we investigate further,” she said.

“We will take all the necessary steps to correct the problem.”

Nick Pickles, director of civil liberties and privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: “At a time when the Home Office wants to monitor our emails and the websites we visit and the Department for Education is consulting on forcing internet providers to control people’s internet access, this kind of fundamental security failure is nothing short of astounding.

“It calls into question whether the Government has any credibility whatsoever on technology issues, despite repeated assurances that lessons of the past have been learned.”