Research carried out in Australia by US data experts have highlighted the possible dangers of a future where, by default, many of us could fall foul of unchecked big-data and automated algorithmic decision-making.

Travels Yield Insights

After travelling around Australia studying the potential risks posed by algorithmic decisions affecting more parts of our lives, Dr Powles and Professor Frank Pasquale, an expert in big-data and information law at the University of Maryland, were able to highlight some important points to bear in mind.

Do You Fit The Algorithm Maker’s Assumptions?

One important thing to remember about algorithms is that they are made by a human who has a set of assumptions, and that they rely on statistics. On this basis, the researchers have concluded that some statistical processes such as averaging results in those people who fit the assumptions made by the algorithm’s creators being treated fairly, and those who don’t i.e. those who are ‘statistical outliers’ are in danger of being treated unfairly by default by algorithms.

Why Use Algorithms?

According to Professor Frank Pasquale, some of the main reasons why algorithms are used and sometimes favoured over human interaction are:

– Speed and scale. They allow you to do things quickly and can allow you to scale them to over tens of thousands of people, which can also help users to avoid the queues.

– Efficiency and productivity. The progress of pushing the use of big data and AI forward is often framed in terms of efficiency or productivity, and algorithms help with these.

– Greater sharing and enabling re-use of data.

– Human preference. The Professor noted that there are many occasions where people prefer interaction with a computer system to e.g. what they perceive as uncaring or unfeeling bureaucrats. Also, young people are becoming more accustomed to, and often prefer interacting with computers e.g. seamless, frictionless, easy interaction.

Problems

The Professor also noted that problems with relying on complicated algorithms can arise when they lack transparency i.e. what exact factors people are being judged on. The example of consumer credit scores was given where if you are eligible for a mortgage can depend, in part, on secret algorithms used to assess how creditworthy you are.

Also, as Dr Powles pointed out, some computerised systems can become so complicated that even their designers don’t know how they work, and this can cause serious problems as regards transparency.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

There is clearly a case for the value-adding use of algorithms and the products of big data as they enable businesses to increase speed and achieve scale in dealing with processes such as searches, applications etc.

As Dr Powles points out in the findings of this research however, it is vitally important that, if big decisions made by businesses and organisations that affect lives are made by algorithms, there should be fairness and transparency by default. Algorithms also need to be accountable to the people about whom they’re making decisions.

Another important point, this time from Professor Pasquale, is that automated decisions that cannot be explained simply to the people they affect will be alienating.

Businesses, therefore, need to take these factors into account when introducing algorithms to important business processes e.g. screening job applicants and making decisions on whether or not services can be supplied to those who apply.

President Donald Trump has criticised Google for what he sees as hiding “fair media” coverage of him in its search engine results in a way that amounts to left-wing political bias and negativity.

Tweeting Again

The US President’s latest swipe at a tech giant accused Google of prioritising negative news stories from the “national left-wing media”.

He went so far as to say that his perceived promotion by Google of mainstream (left-wing) media outlets such as CNN, and the suppression of conservative political voices amounted to a dangerous action and a “very serious situation”.

Prompted By Fox News Report?

It has long been known that President Trump’s favourite (right-wing) news channel is Fox News. Many commentators believe that it may be no coincidence that his criticism of Google via Twitter followed the morning after a feature about the matter on Fox News.

The segment featured details of a report by Paula Bolyard who said she had performed test searches in Google on many different computers registered to different users, and that she found that 96% of the news articles presented by Google for the phrase “Trump news” were from left-wing news outlets. This is the exact figure that President Trump reported in his tweets. While Ms Bolyard accepted that this was not a scientific experiment, she noted that it did suggest a “bias against right-leaning content.”.

Paula Bolyard is also a supervising editor at PJ Media, the conservative news site.

Search Not Used To Set A Political Agenda

Google’s response has been to re-iterate that its search feature, which is controlled by automatic algorithms, is not used to set a political agenda, and that the results of searches aren’t biased toward any political ideology.

Google’s search algorithms are reported to take into account over 200 different factors, and these algorithms are regularly changed and improved to make sure that they find the most relevant links to user queries as quickly as possible.

One possible explanation for sites such as CNN.com and NYTimes.com ranking highly in searches is the fact that they are likely to have many readers linking to them, and they are very popular sites.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Google (Alphabet Inc) is a private company, and as one U.S. member of Congress Ted Lieu pointed out in a tweet responding to President Trump’s tweets, courts would not tolerate governments trying to dictate the free speech algorithms of private companies.

It is, however, important to note that President Trump’s comments can have a direct and fast effect on any countries / industries / businesses that he focuses on. For example, as well as shares of Alphabet falling 0.3% after Mr Trump’s accusations, President Trump’s warning against countries doing business with Iran forced the EU to bring in a blocking statute to protect EU firms and a means to allow EU businesses affected by the sanctions to sue the US administration.

Many see these latest comments as a continuation of President Trump’s criticism of news media coverage of him, a desire exert control over what’s being said, and as a way to apply more pressure to tech companies to clamp down on anything that could point to any foreign interference in and disruption of US politics, especially in the wake of accusations of Russian influence and Facebook being used to spread messages that may have affected the US election result. Facebook and Twitter have also been in the US administration’s firing line over accusations of removing content from some conservatives, and being called upon to remove conspiracy driven content and hate speech.

This is a war of words with economic consequences that is likely to continue.

Facebook has reacted quickly and taken down many accounts of Myanmar’s military leaders after a damning UN report accused them of genocide and war crimes against the Muslim Rohingya population.

Removed

It has been reported that, following the release of the report, Facebook removed a total of 18 user accounts, and 52 pages associated with the Myanmar military. These are thought to include the page of its commander-in-chief.

All of the removed pages and accounts are thought to have had a total of almost 12 million followers.

The Situation, In Brief

The action by Facebook relates to the situation in Myanmar, formerly Burma, where approximately 25,000 Rohingya Muslims have been killed and an estimated 700,000 forced to flee to Bangladesh in over the past year. The blame for the alleged genocide has been placed firmly at the door of the Myanmar military, and the country’s leader and Nobel Prize winner, Ang San Suu Kyi, has been widely criticised for apparently failing to use her position as head of government, or her moral authority, to stop the persecution and violence in Rakhine state.

Facebook – Several Reasons

As well as the fact that the accounts relate to suspected war criminals, Facebook has several reasons to act quickly in taking down the accounts of military leaders and their associates, including the fact that:

– Facebook, by its own admission, had been too slow up until now in acting to remove posts aimed at stirring up and spreading hatred against the minority Muslim Rohingya population.

– Facebook is a very popular social network in Myanmar, and thus bad as well as good messages can be distributed widely and quickly using the platform.

– The Tatmadaw (the official name of the armed forces of Myanmar) has been using its official Facebook pages to discredit allegations of the crimes it has committed, and to stir-up further fears about the Rohingya. Also, the Tatmadaw are thought to have been using bogus independent news and opinion pages to covertly push their own messages.

– Facebook is very aware that it has been used as a means to influence political opinion and even election outcomes in some other countries i.e. alleged Russian use of Facebook in the US election. This has made Facebook anxious to stop this happening.

– The social network, along with other platforms, apps, and tech giants, has long been accused by many different governments of failing to act / failing to act quickly enough to remove hate speech and racist content.

– Facebook and other platforms have been threatened with regulation e.g. Ofcom in the UK, and Facebook is anxious to claw back much of the trust it lost in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, as well as getting some good publicity.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Most businesses like to operate in and associate themselves with stable countries, particularly where they feel the government is trustworthy, and where the military don’t have too much power. The cost in human suffering in events and circumstances in Myanmar have been terrible, and this has also caused the economy to suffer, as its growth has slowed, it’s currency has dropped against the dollar, and as other countries and potential trading partners have tried to distance themselves from the current regime.

For Facebook, this has been a much-needed opportunity to present its positive side and show that it can and will act quickly to police its own network where it feels it has credible and conclusive evidence to do so, and to be able to justify its actions. This has been something that Facebook appears to have been much more keen to do lately e.g. in deleting 30+ pages and accounts attempting to influence the US midterm elections, and in removing 650+ fake Facebook accounts and pages, and pages designed to influence politics in US and the UK, as well as in the Middle East and Latin America.

The power and responsibility of social network platforms is now beginning to become apparent. Businesses are now major advertisers on social networks too, and as such, they need to ensure that they can reach the right audience in enough numbers and that their advertising doesn’t suffer from negative associations or being displayed next to content or posts that promote hatred.

An AI system for diagnosing eye disease caused by diabetes that has been approved for use in the US works autonomously and doesn’t need a doctor to interpret its results.

New Way To Solve Old Problem

Diabetic retinopathy, a leading cause of blindness among adults, is caused by high blood sugar levels damaging the blood vessels of the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye / the retina. The condition affects up to eight out of 10 people who have had diabetes for 10 years or more.

Given the extent of the problem, Google and DeepMind are reported to have been working on building machine-learning algorithms for detecting diabetic retinopathy for some time.

The new AI-based device from Iowa diagnostics company IDx LLC is the first FDA-approved AI system for diagnosing this particular eye disease.

No Doctors Required For Diagnosis

The system can be used to spot the disease i.e. signs of mild diabetic retinopathy in scans of people’s retinas. This would normally be a job that would require human input, and as such, the new device is a first in eye care.

Although the system can diagnose the disease on its own, and therefore, doesn’t require a doctor’s input for diagnosis, it cannot recommend treatment plans, as this requires human doctors.

How Does It Work?

The system uses two convolutional neural networks.

The first one studies and analyses the image quality of retinal scans, from this it can determine if the focus, colour balance, and exposure are good enough to pass the photos to the diagnostic algorithm.

The second stage / network looks for common signs of damage related to the disease e.g. haemorrhages from burst blood vessels which may be caused by unstable blood sugar levels.

From these processes, the system is able to make a diagnosis.

How Accurate Is It?

Given the complicated nature of the medical condition, the accuracy of the system has been tested (using 900 subjects) in terms of its sensitivity, specificity and imageability. The device is reported to have scored 87% sensitivity i.e. identifying patients who have a mild version of the condition, 90% cent specificity i.e. indentifying those with no eye damage, and 96% imageability i.e. a high enough quality of image was generated to achieve a diagnosis.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

AI is being incorporated in more value adding and innovative ways to solve many problems across all industries and sectors, and as such, represents an opportunity for those businesses developing devices and systems with an AI element.

Not only does this device perform an important part of a service that hitherto required expert human input, it also frees up time that the human expert would have spent on diagnosis, thereby allowing valuable medical resources to be extended and allocated elsewhere. This demonstrates how AI can add value, save time / costs, and allow more leverage to be gained from existing services.

We already trust devices / machinery to handle many important aspects of medical care, and with this in mind, there should be no real reason to mistrust the accuracy and fitness for purpose of this system, particularly given that it has been tested, and that there will be human input at the treatment plan stage that may help to spot any errors.

AI in medical care represents an important step into the future that could bring some incredible benefits.

Ride-hailing service Uber, which has until recently been associated with cars, has announced a shift in focus towards bikes and scooters in order to drive growth and keep people using the platform.

The Challenges

Uber has faced a number of challenges in recent times, some of which have been of its own making. These challenges have included:

• Congestion in inner-city areas (particularly in rush hour), the exact places where many of its customers use the service in large numbers to travel short distances. Uber itself has been accused by Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, of adding to city’s congestion problems. This has resulted in another challenge in that city for Uber – a suggested cap on the number of Uber drivers. New York has also voted to impose a temporary cap on new licences for ride-hailing vehicles in order to tackle congestion
• Trouble over licences, the effect on revenue, and associated bad press. For example, Uber only has a 15-month provisional licence in London which was only granted on appeal this year.
• The need to get the company into good financial shape before it is floated on the stock market, with a value of up to $70bn.
• More bad press and potentially costly problems relating to Uber resisting court rulings giving employment rights to its drivers.
• The opportunity of getting a substantial piece of the mobility market, but not being in the ideal position to do so.
• The need to keep engagement of customers with the company / brand.
• The need to drive growth in the longer term.

The Solution

The solution for Uber, according to its Boss Dara Khosrowshahi, is to diversify into bikes and scooters. The main reasons for this is that they will be more effective and efficient than cars in congested city areas, they represent a way to get another slice of the lucrative mobility market, and they can be used to help shape consumer behaviour and keep levels of engagement high.

How?

Uber has already also invested in electric scooter company Lime, invested in several bike firms over last year (including spending $200m on bike-sharing firm Jump), and added e-bikes to its app in some US cities. This has already enabled Uber to offer Jump electric bikes in eight US cities, including New York and Washington, and soon Berlin.

Playing The Longer Game

Uber has admitted that although the shift in focus will not bring short-term financial benefits, it should take the company nearer to where it wants to be in the longer term.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

This is an example of a business thinking with more strategic clarity, seeing their market as the whole ‘mobility market’, and finding a relatively simple solution for themselves to position themselves for a wider share of it through diversification, and in the meantime finding a way around some of the more immovable challenges e.g. congestion.

Uber has built a brand that has married new technology with existing technologies and services (mobile use and apps with car-hailing services), has experimented with future technologies e.g. driverless cars, but has also made the headlines for less positive reasons. Users of the service simply have a basic need to get from A to B as quickly, safely, and cheaply as possible, and bikes may well prove popular, as well as addressing some environmental concerns.

Many of us are used to using Amazon’s digital voice-activated assistant for all kinds of things at home. You can also use it via Windows 10 in the office. Here’s how:

Many new computers may come with the Alexa App pre-installed. Look for the Alexa app in the Start menu or type ‘Amazon Alexa’ in the Start menu Search bar.

If your computer doesn’t support hands-free access, click the Alexa icon at the bottom of the app to call up the voice assistant.

If you don’t have the Alexa App pre-installed on your computer, you can install it:

Ensure your PC is up to date and configured with US Language settings.

Download the Alexa app and follow the installation instructions – https://www.windowscentral.com/how-install-amazon-alexa-windows-10

To show the Alexa app all the time in your Windows 10 taskbar:

Go to Windows Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Select which icons appear on the taskbar and enable Alexa.

Among the findings of a recent government report about superfast broadband in the UK are claims that superfast broadband rollout so far has led to job creation and a £12.28 benefit for firms for every £1 invested by central and local authorities.

Measurable Benefits

The Evaluation of the Economic Impact and Public Value of the Superfast Broadband Programme report, by The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), covering 2012 to 2016, claims that the fact that superfast broadband has now reached almost five million homes and businesses (Openeach puts the figure at 10 million) has provided noticeable, measurable and business and economic benefits.

Fewer Jobseekers, More Jobs

For example, according to the report, superfast broadband has driven a reduction of almost 9,000 jobseekers allowance claims, and the creation of 49,000 local jobs.

What Is Superfast Broadband?

Superfast broadband refers to connections with broadband speeds of 24 megabits per second and above.

Where?

Superfast broadband is more available in some parts of the UK than others. For example, the highest rate of superfast broadband availability is in North East England (97.19%). Also offering high rates of superfast broadband availability are South East England (97.07%) and the West Midlands (96.56%).

Unfortunately, those who live and work in Northern Ireland are currently treated to the lowest rates of availability in the UK at 87.74%.

Boost

The growth in the levels of superfast broadband availability has been given a boost by factors such as Openreach, the firm that runs the vast majority of the UK’s telecoms infrastructure, reducing the wholesale price of broadband.

This is thought to have helped take-up for superfast and fibre broadband services by homes and businesses, and given competitors e.g. Sky and TalkTalk the opportunity to reduce the cost of using the network, provided that they can get enough sign-ups.

Back in March last year, Ofcom (the telecoms regulator) announced that BT has agreed to legally separate from Openreach, which owns and operates the UK’s broadband infrastructure. This move was intended to enable greater competition among broadband providers and greater investment in the network infrastructure.

Fibre

Fibre has offered greater broadband speeds and reliability, but at the moment, most connections have fibre-optic lines up to the local street cabinet, but then copper phone lines from the cabinet to the house.

The government says that its aim is to give all of the UK full-fibre broadband (fibre to and from the cabinet) – rather than rely on broadband delivered over copper networks, by 2033.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Broadband is now an essential service for business, and businesses would obviously welcome any improvement in broadband speeds in the UK as it would undoubtedly help UK companies to become more competitive, and would boost the economy.
Unfortunately, while those who are able to benefit from superfast and (full) fibre broadband are clearly reaping the benefits, this is not the case in many areas of the UK. For example, in April this year, a survey by consumer watchdog ‘Which?’ has revealed that more than half of UK customers across 12 providers, are having problems with their broadband service or price.

Although this latest government announcement paints a positive picture of superfast broadband in the UK, the UK is now only at 35th place in the global average broadband speed league tables. This is because it has been too late in embracing a full-fibre solution – FTTP (fibre to the premises). Many critics have pointed to UK infrastructure provider Openreach shying away from FTTP because of the perceived costs and level of difficulty of large-scale rollouts.

For the time being then, UK businesses have to rely on the slower FTTC (fibre to the cabinet), and this has put UK businesses at a competitive disadvantage with businesses in many other European countries.

Major improvements to broadband speeds for UK businesses in most areas are still a long way off as the UK may only actually have 7% full fibre coverage by 2020, with full coverage unlikely for another 15+ years.

In Australia, a new draft bill proposing ways for tech firms, software developers and others to assist security agencies and police has been given the thumbs-down by a major industry group over its ambiguity, and the potential security risks it could create.

What Bill?

The new “Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Bill 2018” is a Bill for an Act to amend the law relating to telecommunications, computer access warrants and search warrants, and for ‘other purposes’.

The bill proposes that a ‘technical assistance request’ may be given to a tech company e.g. a social media or chat app company asking that provider to offer ‘voluntary’ help in the form of ‘technical assistance’ to the Australian Secret Intelligence Service or an ‘interception agency’ with a view to enforcing / helping to enforce the criminal law, protecting the public revenue, and / or acting in the interests of Australia’s national security, foreign relations, or economic well being.

What Kind of Technical Assistance?

In essence, those who have interpreted and reacted publicly to the contents of the bill have taken it to mean that as part of the Australian government’s fight against the criminal use of encrypted communications (end-to-end encryption), tech firms will be asked to build weaknesses / ‘back doors’ into their products/ services that will enable government monitoring.

For example, the UK government (under then Home Secretary Amber Rudd) were seeking ‘back door’ access to encrypted apps such as Facebook’s WhatsApp on the grounds that terror suspects were known to have used it for communication prior to the Westminster attack. At the time, WhatsApp refused to co-operate on the grounds that end-to-end encryption prevented even its own technicians from reading people’s messages.

WhatsApp has also been blocked three times in Brazil for failing to hand over information relating to criminal investigations.

Worked In Germany

Presumably and ideally, the kind of thing that the new bill would be used for in Australia would be in the same way that German encrypted communications App ‘Telegram” had a back-door built into it which allowed law enforcement agencies to access messages, enabling them to foil a planned suicide attack on a Christmas market in 2016.

Digi Objects

The loudest critic of the new Bill in Australia has been the Digital Industry Group (known as ‘Digi’) whose members include Facebook, Google and Twitter. Their main arguments against the bill are that it is ambiguous and lacks judicial oversight, and building any back-doors for government agencies into encrypted services will also be creating access for criminals to exploit. Big social media tech firms say, for example, that building such potential vulnerabilities into their services could not only leave the majority of their customers vulnerable to attack for the sake of catching a minority, but could also undermine the essential trust in their services.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Privacy, security, and freedom from unnecessary surveillance are valued concerns by individuals and businesses, but national security is also an issue, and is something that affects the wider economy. The bill from the Australian government is the latest in a long line of similar requests that the big tech companies are facing from governments around the world. The conundrum, however, is the same. Tech companies are private businesses whose services allow users to share personal data, and they need the trust of their users that privacy and security will be preserved, and yet governments would like access to the private conversations, hopefully just for national security purposes. Also, once a back-door is built-in to an encrypted service (e.g. end-to-end encrypted services), it is no longer really secure, and all users could potentially be at risk. Bills suggesting that help by tech firms would be ‘voluntary’ are also likely to mean that failure to comply voluntarily would undoubtedly have negative consequences for tech firms (e.g. fines).

As freedom and privacy groups would point out, there is also some mistrust over government motives for accessing more of our private conversations and details, and in the wake of the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica scandal for example, there are questions about just who else our details and private conversations and opinions could be shared with and how that could be used. It is also a fact that governments tend not to like communications tools and currencies (e.g. Bitcoin) that they can’t access, control, or regulate.

The ‘big brother’ element to bills like these worries citizens in all countries, and some tech companies, which are certainly not blameless (e.g. on user tracking and data sharing activities) are likely to try and hold out as long as possible from publicly being seen to be co-operating with any wide-scale government surveillance.

It has been reported that Facebook allocates a trustworthiness score to some members to help it manage misinformation issues such as some members continually flagging / reporting stories as fake if they don’t agree with the content.

Score?

It is not publicly known exactly how the score is arrived at, but it has been reported recently in the Washington Posts that Facebook’s ‘Misinformation Team’ will be making use of the metric, a system that has taken a year to develop.

Why?

It is understood that the system, which Facebook denies amounts to a reputation score, is part of an initiative announced 2 years ago to find a way to deal with issues around fake news and fighting misinformation.

These include both making news with dubious / fake content appear lower in users’ news feeds, and stopping people from indiscriminately flagging news as fake in order to control and influence news and opinions.

Repeat Flaggers In The Spotlight

The scoring system will have a focus on stopping some Facebook members from simply flagging / reporting stories they don’t agree with.

Some commentators have speculated that this part of the scoring system works by correlating any false news reports with the decisions of independent fact-checkers, and by giving higher scores (and presumably higher news feed positions) to a user who makes a single complaint that is substantiated, than to a user who makes lots of complaints, only some of which are substantiated.

Not The First Time

Facebook is not the first and only platform to us such scoring systems for members. For example, Uber rates customers on scores they’ve given to drivers, Twitter has been reported as having used a reputation score to help recommend which members to follow, and a pilot scheme in China is allocating a social credit score to citizens based on their online behaviour.

Criticism

The Facebook scoring system has been criticised by some people who say that Facebook’s own trustworthiness is unregulated, the scoring system is automated and not transparent, and could amount to another way of Facebook using peoples’ data in a way they may not expect or want (bearing in mind the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica scandal).

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

We are used to the idea that decisions that affect businesses are made using algorithms and automatic scoring systems i.e. search engine rankings. If the new Facebook scoring system works as it should and for the purpose that Facebook has stated, then it may contribute to better management of misinformation, which can only benefit the economy and businesses.

Unfortunately, how Facebook can be trusted to use our data behind the scenes is a sore subject at the moment, and it could be said that mistrust of Facebook and its motives with this move is expected and healthy. Since the Cambridge Analytics revelations, and findings that Facebook was used to distribute dubious, politically influential posts of Russian origins leading up to the US election, Facebook has to at least be seen / reported to be doing more to manage misinformation on its platform.

Unfortunately for Facebook, the scoring system is unlikely to appeal to President Trump, who has warned that it is dangerous for tech / social media companies such as Facebook to regulate themselves. Some commentators have suggested that this concern is partly based on a fear that conservative voices may be silenced by such measures.

Superdrug is reported to have advised online customers to change their passwords after it was targeted by hackers who claim to have stolen the details of approximately 20,000 Superdrug customers.

Hundreds Compromised – Could Be More

To date, Superdrug has confirmed that 386 customer accounts are known to have been compromised, but that it is still working to try to establish the exact number. It is possible, therefore, that the number could be many more.

Contacted By Hackers

Superdrug is reported to have been contacted by a person representing a hacking group and claiming to have hacked their systems, and this person provided stolen customer information as proof. Superdrug was able to confirm the authenticity of the information from their own record of customer email and log-in details. The hacker is reported to have claimed that the details belonging to 20,000 customers were stolen, and has asked for a ransom from Superdrug.

May Have Got From Elsewhere

Even though the assumption is that the mystery hackers got into Superdrug’s systems to get the customer data, Superdrug is claiming this is not the case and that the hackers got the customer login details from other websites and then used those credentials to access accounts on the Superdrug website.

What Kind of Details?

Superdrug has said that, of the compromised accounts that it knows about, names, addresses, some dates of birth, and some telephone numbers may have been stolen, but that no customer payment card details have been accessed.

Actions

Superdrug has said that it has contacted the Police and Action Fraud (the UK’s national fraud and cyber-crime arm) and is offering them all the information they need for an investigation.

Informed Customers

Those customers whose accounts had been compromised were sent an email by Superdrug explaining the situation, asking them to change their passwords, and advising them to change them regularly in future.

Anger Over Tweet

A tweet sent by Superdrug to confirm that the emails received by affected customers was genuine provoked anger, mostly because it failed to include an apology.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Although exact numbers of those affected and exact details of how customer data was obtained and accounts accessed have not yet been confirmed, the fact is that at least several hundred customers of a trusted high street brand have ended up being victims of crime, and Superdrug has (at the very least) a PR battle on its hands.

Sadly, Superdrug is one of many well-known companies with data breaches that have made the headlines, affected many customers, and damaged their own company reputations. For example, a Dixons Carphone breach from last year saw the theft of 10 million customer records.

Not just because of possible fines under GDPR, businesses and organisations should be putting customer data protection very high on the list of their business priorities, as strong data security policies, procedures, practices, and defences protect both the customer, the company and its reputation, and a vital and valuable bond of trust between merchant and customer, and send a message that customer security concerns are taken seriously.