John van den Heuvel’s home address ended up on the Internet

This made me feel very uncomfortable and uneasy. Suddenly a serious safety risk had arisen. Despite all efforts to protect yourself and your family, something like this happens. I was informed about it by RTL News. They discovered that there had been a huge data breach at the Municipal Health Service.

A number of Municipal Health Service employees had stolen and possibly sold personal data. This concerned data from people who had made an appointment at a Municipal Health Service for a coronavirus test or vaccination. And my data was included. Name, date of birth, address, telephone, email address, citizen service number, nationality...
 

I can see that the crime world is increasingly focusing on cyber theft

I never expected that my data would not be safe with the Municipal Health Service. I understand that no organisation can give a 100% guarantee, but you do expect that organisations will do everything they can to protect privacy-sensitive information to the best of their ability. Especially government agencies. I found it disconcerting.

Data breaches are an increasing risk, and that worries me, regardless. I can see that the crime world is increasingly focusing on cyber theft and the trade in personal data. A new, young generation of criminals is being deployed for this purpose.

In my work I frequently witness how scammers try to deceive people. For example with phishing emails. The more information such scammers have about you, the more credible they can make such a fake email appear. It’s really important that people are alert to this threat.
 

Messages to victims of data breaches must be clearer

And equally important is that companies and organisations properly inform people if their personal data has been affected by a data breach. They are obliged to do so anyway, but in practice the information is not always helpful. I once received an email saying “Your data has been involved in a data breach”. That was it. I can’t do much with that. Such messages need to be way clearer. What data is involved? Only then can people make an assessment and take action.