Millions of UK voters’ data accessible in cyber-attack

Re:Millions of UK voters’ data accessible in cyber-attack by mrmikardo on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @11:01AM (#37049994)

This is another good case for security-by-minimisation. I struggle to see why NI numbers were required on the electoral register — particularly when democracy in the UK had been functioning for over a century without them.

The best way to ensure valuable data doesn’t leak into the public realm is to minimise the amount of unnecessary data collection.

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Re:Millions of UK voters’ data accessible in cyber-attack by jjgreen on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @11:04AM (#37050045)

I struggle to see why NI numbers were required on the electoral register

I don't, they were introduced shortly after the plans for an ID card died out. It's simply a proxy ID register.

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Re:Millions of UK voters’ data accessible in cyber-attack by rwmj on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @12:22PM (#37051456)

Best way here would have been to only collect the information at the constituency level. Why is there even a need for a national database? If you're concerned about fraud then periodically cross-check hashed NI numbers or something like that.

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Re:Millions of UK voters’ data accessible in cyber-attack by cameronh90 on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @04:43PM (#37055192)

One reason they're recorded is to try and detect voter fraud.

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