Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Haringey's permit payment site - data leakage woes?
My wife just applied for some visitor permits online. After a bit of a debacle as the council site was down for a bit (I suspect due to problems on Virgin Media tonight) she managed to get the payment pages to load.
Upon completion of payment, she filled out the box with her email address, to get a receipt sent. The receipt has arrived, but the confirmation web page said in fairly small red lettering at the top of the page that it'd been sent elsewhere - to some dodgy looking hotmail address.
The email that we have received has her name, address, and the last four digits of her card number, plus the type of card. Not a great deal of leakage but more than we'd send out to any random person out of choice! If the invoice has gone out to someone else, this seems like a clear breach of data protection regs to me.
Has anyone else noticed this behaviour from the site?
I will be calling HC and also emailing the random address to see if I can get a response. What a crappy payment site. Further evidence to show that it was coded by incompetents it seems! Who on earth signed that design off?!
Tags for Forum Posts: haringey, parking permits online, payment, permit, site
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Paul Harvey on
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Just done the same and experienced the same thing.... Though I did get the email to the correct address..so possibly no harm done? Is a slight worry though
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Permalink Reply by Karen Alexander on
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Thanks for flagging this up. I will take it up with the parking office at Haringey Council. Something is clearly going wrong and they need to sort it out asap.
Cllr Karen Alexander
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Permalink Reply by DrWhams on
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I had the same thing earlier in the week. I did it twice and saw the same email address both times. Mine had 'moo' and 'sky' in it. I suspect that this could actually be test data from the web designers. I did get the email confirmation through to my regular email though.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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I've just an an email from Julie Parker, Director of Corporate Services, who told me she spotted this earlier in the evening and will get officers looking into the matter in the morning.
So credit to Ms Parker, to alert residents and to HoL.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Permalink Reply by Joe Bailey on
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Thanks Alan and Karen, great to see you've picked up on this so quickly.
Sadly, the email address I was given in the confirmation screen contained neither "moo" nor "sky", and does seem to exist as I've had no bounce back to my gmail account from a test I've sent.
Given that personal info may be going out to the wrong people, I would think it prudent to suspend the payment service until an investigation has taken place and resolution has been put in place. Either way, I think further explanation from HC is required!
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Joe, the person who picked it up yesterday evening was Julie Parker, Director of Corporate Services, who emailed me just after 10pm. And first thing this morning I also had an email about it from Kevin Crompton, the Chief Executive.
I can be as critical of Haringey Council services as anyone. In fact it's part of a councillor's job. But I also try to make suggestions for improvement. And to give appreciation for the positives as well.
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Thanks Alan,
That does seem to indicate that they are taking it seriously - no bad thing given they may be sending private data to the wrong recipients!
I've tried to contact Julie Parker and am awaiting a call back.
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Permalink Reply by Justin Guest on
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Astonishing. I am surprised that this seems to be news to Julie Parker, Alan. I bought permits in October last year and had this same problem (and others). I pointed it out to the relevant email address and this is the reply I got on the 6th of October 2011.
"Dear Justin Guest,
Thank you for your email.
Firstly, we are aware of the erroneous email address problem. There is no data or email sent to the other email address as it is just stray data that the server has picked up and displayed on the webpage. Our Service provider is currently working to fix this bug.
There is no shopping cart facility on our system so you can only order one type of voucher at a time. This means you have to repeat the process each time for each type of voucher.
We would like to thank you for your comments and we would be forwarding this to our Service Provider.
Thanks,
Simon Ho | Frontline Services | Place & Sustainability| Haringey Council"
I am amazed that the comments I (and others?) have offered previously have just disappeared into a black hole. Interesting we all seem to get the same stock response. Just who is taking responsibility for this? Anyone?
I have spoken to Alan Stanton about this and other related parking/web issues (I will not bore you with the details yet) and was encouraged to mail nilgun.canver@haringey.gov.uk & ann.cunningham@haringey.gov.uk. Neither were available for direct comment but I did get a formal response telling me I would have a response to the issues by the end of Jan. I will let you know when I do.
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Many thanks for posting this, Justin. I find it very worrying that you reported this problem more than three months ago - without effective action taken to solve it. Other people who reported it presumably got the same stock response.
I'll again email Julie Parker and Kevin Crompton about this. It seems to be an example of a system where "Customer Services" dealing with the public have not spotted that a pattern of repeated errors over several months is more than "just stray data" - a "bug" to be fixed. The organisation needs to learn and to reframe the problem. Mainly for the reason in the last paragraph of my comment posted here.
It's also interesting as an illustration of Clay Shirky's 3-stage model which I've mentioned before. It's in this TED video.
In frame 1 the red arrows show traditional one-way, centre-out, top-down communication, beloved of hierarchies throughout history. Frame 2 adds talking-back - the red arrows are two-way. Frame 3 adds green links - communication between and among other participants: citizens, service users, group members, etc.
Shirky's third diagram leaves out the talk-back to the Centre which I'm keen we don't forget.
This website has enabled residents to share information with one another - in this case about Parking Permits. But the "Centre" has been told about the problems as well. And we and they know that.
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Thanks Alan. This is a relatively small issue, I suspect no one has been harmed in any way, a few of us have been a bit freaked, and we have collectively wasted time in resolving the issue, and council officers have wasted their time pouring oil over troubled water. However, if this is systematic of how services are provided on or offline across the council then there is a real disconnect between the bureaucracy and the population it is meant to serve.
What I do not understand is why the bureaucracy is unable or unwilling to listen, take responsibility and act. It is not good governance. How do we introduce mechanism that allow stakeholders to be heard and a measure of accountability be introduced?
Sorry, slightly off topic, but a real frustration when so many of us have clearly taken the time to make the effort to report a failing that could be so easily rectified and it is simply kicked into the long grass.
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Permalink Reply by Laura on
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Just to say, I had the same thing happen to me a couple of months ago. Eg, I filled in my email address for a receipt and was then told the receipt had gone to a completely different email address. Hope this gets fixed. Particularly as it is not possible to get any permits in person any more.....
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Can I strongly urge anyone who spots something like this happening, to let Haringey know.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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