UK Gov't Lost Personal Data On 4M People In One Year

An anonymous reader writes "The U.K. government has lost the personal information of up to four million citizens in one year alone. The astonishing figures, calculated by the BBC, added up as Whitehall departments slowly released their annual reports for the year to April. And the trend has not stopped — in the latest revelation, HM Revenue Customs, which infamously lost the details of 25 million child benefits claimants last November on two unencrypted discs, experienced 1,993 data breaches between 1 October last year and 24 June." (More below.) "Earlier this week, the Ministry of Justice admitted it had lost 45,000 people's details throughout the year, on laptops, external security devices and paper, and that 30,000 of them had not been notified. Before that, the Home Office announced it had lost the data of 3,000 seasonal agricultural workers on two unencrypted CDs. In May, the Department for Transport lost the data of three million learner drivers. Other data losses occurred at the Foreign Office, which lost 190 people's data in five incidents. In January, the Ministry of Defence said it had lost a laptop containing the details of 620,000 recruits and potential recruits, and some information on 450,000 referees for job applicants. The Liberal Democrats have called for 'data guardians' to be appointed to monitor the government's handling of information."

Comments

Another USB stick has gone missing

[rallymatte]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7575989.stm

incompetance and money 'saving'

[thermian]

The UK has all but handed over the handling of citizens data to lowest bidder IT companies.

I've experienced this first hand. I worked in a hospital where total access to everything on the hospitals network was available without even typing in a password if you used certain machines which were 'configured for ease of use'. You'd think those machines weren't reachable by member of the public, or externally, but you'd be wrong.

They aren't unique either.

It was actually 29 million, not 4 million

[petes_PoV]

They govt. also lost 25 million Child benefit records. Though it's possible/likely that there were some duplicates in all this - given that the UK population is "only" 61 million, that's still nearly half the people who live in the UK have had some personal data lost by the government