In a staggering display of disregard for the people who pay their wages the government has allowed itself to lose two computer disks containing 25 million records of the personal details of every person associated with claiming child benefit.
Names, dates of birth, national insurance numbers, bank account details and building society account details for 25 million citizens of United Kingdom were all on two computer disks that had been prepared by a ‘junior official’ at the HMRC offices in Newcastle.
The copy of the entire child benefits database had apparently been copied onto the disks to be sent by internal post to the Public Audit Office in London. The chancellor Alister Darling has appologised for what was an unacceptable failure to safeguard personal information.
There is an apology from the HM Revenue & Customs on their website. The chancellor has appologised and the HMRC has appologised. I guess that makes everything alright then? It is hardly credible but the chancellor still seems to think that ID cards have a future even after this farce.
The fact that a ‘junior official’ could have access to this data and could, presumably, if they so wished have sold this data for millions of pounds seems to have been ignored by most commentators but this must be the greatest risk of all. We do not know if that might have already happened. All we do know for certain is that government cannot be trusted with our personal information and the only solution to that problem is that they should not be allowed to centralise such information.
A breach of security such as this could bring the nation to it’s knees. Can you imagine the effects if every bank account in the country had to be frozen because everybody’s personal data had been copied and sold or simply published on the internet? The government has one very clear duty and that is to protect it’s citizens. What we have here is a clear case of citizens being put under threat of financial damage because of the actions of government and the decisions it has taken.Yet still, after all of this, the chancellor appears to think that ID cards are a sensible move. It is truly astonishing to see such stupidity at the heart of government.
It would seem very likely that the Data Protection Act has been broken in this case and there may well be prosecutions to come. Who will pay any fines? It will be you and I as taxpayers, of course. Will it be taken out of the chancellors salary? Will our Prime Minister offer to pay? We employ these people to act on our behalf. If they fail in their jobs we should have the ability to sack them and not have to wait for an election. In what other business would the management be allowed to stay in their jobs for years after the failings of their management became clear?
The government clearly wants to distance themselves from this failure but it is a failure of a system they manage. They have imposed huge changes on these departments and have attempted to cut costs at every opportunity. It is a good thing that they want to avoid waste but if they have cut so much that our data is not safe, for whatever reason, it is their heads that should roll.
We live in an information age and we are frequently told that the most valuable asset you can have is information yet this knowledge seems to be entirely absent from government. We are even told in government information that we should shred our documents and protect our data. Yet, they demand more and more personal information though they clearly don’t know how to securely manage it. This time it may have been stupidity by a ‘junior official’. The disks may turn up in a drawer somewhere and all will be ok. What if, next time it is the action of a spy from an enemy state or simply someone with criminal intent? Will somebody please tell me how our ID cards would protect us all then?
Government ministers of whichever party is in power are always quick to claim credit when things go well but they must also accept responsibility when things go wrong.
