From infosecurity-magazine.com
The UK government is facing urgent questions after it was revealed that betting companies were given access to a Department for Education (DfE) database containing personal information on 28 million children.
Known as the Learning Record Service, the database stores information on students in England, Wales and North Ireland choosing to take post-14 qualifications like GCSEs.
However, according to a report in The Sunday Times, a data intelligence firm known as GB Group was able to sign an agreement with a third-party company to access the data. GB Group’s clients include gambling firms such as Betfair and 32Red, which apparently used the data for age and ID verification on their websites.
The third-party, Trust Systems Software (Trustopia), denies providing database access to GB Group. Both GB Group and the DfE are investigating the reports, with the latter having reportedly disabled access to the data trove and informed privacy watchdog the ICO.