London, April 20: Three British government departments have been accused of publishing government secrets on internet as the Whitehall officials failed to handle the sensitive data.
The Ministry of Defence, the Department of Health and the Department of Communities and Local Government have all published documents which had legal obligation to be kept as top secret.
Consequently, everyone using internet could have access to the very information which were supposed to be read by very few number of officials.
UK ministry of Defense had previously declared that the country’s nuclear submarines secrets were accessible in internet. The MoD experts tried to black out certain parts of the issued information, including sensitive material on the subs. but they failed since the secret information could be easily read by copy and paste technique.
The information was about the expert’s opinion on the way the fleet could tackle a disastrous accident. The published information was removed and was substituted by a secure version. However, the similar information from three more ministries have been revealed.
Similar security way was used by the other Whitehall departments. The officials applied black patch over the sensitive material, but could be read by normal software.
The Department of Health covered the names of the officials by a marker pen, but the covered names could be accessed by taking the printout up the light.
The department’s spokesman claimed that the privacy was vital. “We make every effort to ensure that names are taken out where appropriate.”
Patrick Mercer, Tory MP for Newark, said that he is to urge the Commons to focus on the subject of data security. “Clearly there are issues which are sensitive and should be concealed,” he said.
“If they are supposed to be concealed then for God’s sake conceal them,” he added.
——–Agencies