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UK Government Announces Massive Child Benefit Data LossThe massive Child Benefit data loss (announced 20th November 2007) has been a shock to the government, and we suspect, much of the UK population. It seems that two cd data disks which contain personal information relating to everyone (!!) in the UK who is currently in receipt of Child Benefit. That relates to over 25 million people. The disks were posted between HM Revenue and Customs in one of their three internal postage systems. Both disks are password protected. Poor Alistair Darling, already under massive pressure from the problems of the Northern Rock, had to make an announcement to the House of Commons describing the loss. From the perspective of identity theft, this is a huge issue. These disks will almost certainly contain enough information - should they fall into the wrong hands - to enable fraudsters to target literally every man, woman and child on the list. The scale of potential problems cannot be overestimated. This also raises another question - relating to ID cards. This site does not want to enter the politics of whether an Identity Card system for the UK is a good or bad thing. That is up to the politicians and every individual to decide for themselves... However, when information seems to be treated so casually by those in possession of it, it does raise questions as to whether the government is either fit or capable to be in possession of such large amounts of sensitive data. No matter how secure the technology behind the ID card may or may not be, just one slip such as this - at any time in the future could compromise the safety and security of every individual in the UK. Is that what we really want? To see how the BBC has reported the story, please go to:
Whilst there is no suggestion that data or disks were lost, it does seem a little odd that the party which explains that information is absolutely secure (when discussing the proposed ID card scheme) actually gives sensitive information to third party operators for assessment. Whether or not this is actually legal, time will tell. Whether or not this raises the potential risk of identity theft to the general population takes little imagination...
This is a little ironic since the cost to strip the disks down to just the data that the NAO required was £5,000 and this was deemed to be too costly. It is also a little odd, bearing in mind that if these disks were to fall into the hands of a professional identity theft gang, it would be worth more like £200 million in potential frauds. Though as you can see from the link below, Lib Dem's Vince Cable puts the figure at more like £1.5 BILLION.
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