Quite a few countries around the world had passports of their citizens copied as part of the
assassination of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. While the photos disemminated by the media were undoubtedly of the assassins, the rest of the details were of real citizens.
Many media outlets in Australia happily splashed hi-res images of the full passport pages last week. And I think some in the UK were similary careless.
So what, you might say. These documents were already compromised.
But, in Australia it seems the compromised passports were still valid on at least one government database - and this happened to be one that many banks, retail brokerages and online betting sites use for new customer validation.
Read the results of that little blunder
here on iTNews.com.au - or, if you want the TV experience,
here on MediaWatch.