Bloomberg ‘Leaked Over 10,000 Private Messages’

Bloomberg is in hot water over privacy again, after it was claimed the company had left over 10,000 private messages sent by its customers online.

The revelations come at a bad time for Bloomberg, which is currently being quizzed over reporters’ use of financial terminals and access to client data.

Another Bloomberg privacy problem

The Financial Times learned of two lists of confidential messages between traders using Bloomberg’s financial terminals. The messages, which sought information on market prices, had been online for several years and were discovered with just a Google search.

A former employee uploaded the data from the messaging service to work on a data mining project for a client, reportedly to upload them to a secure site at a later time.

A Bloomberg spokesperson said the “work was done with client consent”, but admitted the action would have violated its policies.

“Emails were explicitly forwarded to us to a dedicated email account and released by the person responsible for the email so that we could conduct internal testing to improve our technology for the client,” the spokesperson added.

Over the weekend, the firm admitted its journalists had used information from the terminals to guide their coverage and chase leads, after a complaint from investment bank Goldman Sachs.

Bloomberg News editor in chief, Matthew Winkler, admitted the actions were “inexcusable”, and journalists would be prevented from accessing “proprietary” information on the terminals. The company had known about reporters’ access to the data since 2011.

CEO of Bloomberg, Daniel Doctoroff, said on Monday evening the business would employ a client data compliance officer and it had already been in contact with 300 clients over the issue.

“We will do everything possible to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of our clients’ data in all situations and at all times,” he added.

TechWeekEurope contacted Doctoroff for comment on the latest privacy issue, but had not received a response at the time of publication.

Are you a pedant on privacy issues? Try our quiz!