Security Bullet In
Communiques from the security front, sir
Wednesday 21 November 2007, 2:21 PM
HMRC data breach fiasco disks appear on eBay
At least somebody has a sense of humour about the absolute farce of the UK Government losing discs holding the personal details of 25 million UK citizens. Including their bank account details.
The discs briefly appeared on eBay listed as "Two CD-R's - Have data on them - some sort of database". I think it's a really nice touch that "The seller ended this listing early because the item was lost or broken."
I suppose you've got to laugh, really. Or maybe cry. That Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs managed to compromise the names, addresses and national insurance numbers of half the people in the country is compounded by the fact that bank and building society details were linked to those people. What was HMRC thinking? Obviously not much.
It really calls into doubt the competence of the government, or anyone else, to administer the ID Cards Scheme. Honestly, does the government really expect us to trust it with all of our personal information, as well as our biometrics, handily kept in one place -- the National Identity Register?
Public trust over the data-handling capabilities of the government will rightly be shaken over the HMRC fiasco, and I hope it will get people questioning about whether ID Cards will actually be secure, and necessary.
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