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UK Government Loses 15 Million Private Records
bestweasel writes "The BBC reports that a UK Government department has lost discs with details of 15 million benefit recipients, including names, addresses, date of birth and bank accounts. The head of the department involved, HM Revenue & Customs, has resigned and his resignation 'was accepted because discs had been transported in breach of rules governing data protection' so someone thinks it's not a trivial matter. The Chancellor will try to evade responsibility in the House of Commons at 3.30 GMT.
A similar leak of a 'mere' 15,000 records from the same department happened a month or so ago. At that time, they refused to say 'on security grounds' whether the information was encrypted." We just recently talked about Britain's consideration of legal penalties for situations like this. I imagine this incident will weigh on that decision.
Or so says The BBC...
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With a nationwide DNA database? Please. They can't be trusted with anything.
The fact that 25million records were being sent via. post burnt on DVDs should give some idea of the level of technical competency in the public sector. Apparently they were being sent to the Audit Office, but why the Audit Office needed an off line copy of the data, and a complete copy at that, isn't addressed: no doubt some ridiculous bureaucratic idiocy that makes Brazil look sane.
The idea of burning an unencrypted copy of your sensitive data to a DVD and handing it to a random delivery company should horrify even the most incompetent sysadmin or DBA. Apparently no one in HM Customs & Revenue thought anything of it.
These are the sorts of people who want to build a massive database of all our personal details and tie them to ID cards. They tell us the data will be "perfectly safe". I wouldn't trust them to run a mail server.
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We've been heading towards the totalitarian Peoples Democratic Republic of (formerly Great) Britain for some time now. This kind of thing is actually encouraging.
In a country where you are watched by security camera most of the day, and can be detained without charge for longer than anywhere on Earth, it is reassuring to note that the UK Government is so incredibly incompetent that there will always be a way to escape. No need for tunnels, gliders, or under the floor of a Trabant -- it should be pretty much possible to just walk through the border with a library card altered in crayon.
Camping on quad since 1996.
The real WTFs here are
Ok, it's probably worse than that though.
At that time, they refused to say 'on security grounds' whether the information was encrypted.
...
That should read 'on job security grounds'
"The Chancellor will try to evade responsibility..." In what way could be held responsible? The data was copied and sent in clear breach of the agency's (and the Government's) rules. The last time I checked, it wasn't the Chancellor's responsibility to monitor personally all packages sent by Government agencies. Had the security breach happened due to actions which did NOT breach any rules then I might agree with you, however this is not the case here. Put it this way: If ministerial resignation (and that is what you are implying should happen) is to follow every breach of security then that is a green light to every ne'er-do-well and Tory malcontent working in Government to start posting confidential data left, right and centre.
Not offended old bean, we were more than pleased to get rid
of that bunch of God-bothering homophobic nutjobs. Enjoy the
Turkey.
Toodle pip!
Did they look behind the couch?
That's where I always lose things.
They might be there.
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