Final Word from Tuesday, December 12, 2006
A leading banker said that the biggest threat facing the Czech finance industry is internet security. Cyber criminals, many of who are geniuses, are moving at lightning speed to find holes in banks' systems. Banks are reacting by putting in new security measures, but Czech legislation isn't helping much. Identity theft in the CR is unnecessarily easy. Internet users have access in many cases to a person's name, address, date of birth, ID number, commercial holdings and profits. Oh, and in some cases, Justice.cz is kind enough to provide a scanned signature card. The data-protection agency throws up its hands and says that this information must be made available by law. This is the same agency that, by law, is busy making sure no one has an unauthorized email address or phone number stored in a computer. To put it mildly, the CR's data-protection priorities are stuck in the pre-cyber age. [Czech Republic fraud]