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UK Revenue loses 25 million personal records
Gets careless but owns up.
By Maxwell Cooter | Techworld
Published: 15:21 GMT, 20 November 07
Up to 25 million personal records are feared lost in what is the UK's biggest ever data protection breach.
The massive loss of records relating to government Child Benefit claimants prompted an almost unprecedented Parliamentary statement by the chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, and the resignation of the chairman of HM Revenue & Customs, Paul Gray.
According to the BBC, a source at the Child Benefits Agency said that the breach happened when CDs containing the data were lost by a courier travelling between the department’s HQ in Washington, Tyne and Wear, and London.
Included in the 25 million records was information relating to names, national insurance numbers, dates of birth, and bank details for 7.25 million families claiming the benefit for their children.
During his statement, Darling admitted the breach was an "an extremely serious failure", but said there had ben no evidence of suspicious activity that might suggest the files had been compromised by criminals.
It is understood that the government was first notified of the loss ten days ago. It is not clear yet whether the data was encrypted or not, though they were password-protected. Earlier this month, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said that it was considering plans to fine health professionals for losing confidential data.
The news of the loss came on the same day that a CA/You Gov survey revealed a lack of satisfaction by UK consumers in the government's ability to hold on to information.
Add your commentComments
dave | Published: 16:55 GMT, 07 January 2009
Attn government people: I wouldn't trust you to look after a fucking packet of Skittles that was in your charge. You would give them to some no-name guy in a suit who would leave them on a bloody bus.
Ted | Published: 15:53 GMT, 21 November 2007
The real problem as I see it is not that the disks were lost - that type of thing happens all the time. The real problem is that a member of staff could copy the whole database without a senior member of management being alerted to what was going on, and having to authorise it before the copy could continue. In this case there was an accident. How does anyone know whether there has at some time in the past been a deliberate copy for the purposes of making a sale to criminals, and can they prevent it happening in the future. The data base accesses should be monitored for unusual activity like this, and the activity should be automatically halted until approved at a suitiably high level in the management.
Caroline Ikomi, technical manager, Check Point | Published: 15:15 GMT, 21 November 2007
It's not just about protecting against criminal activity or opportunitistic theft. Data leaks happen because people are lazy, or because they think it won't happen to them -- so they take the risk. Endpoint security and especially strong encryption really is the only way to protect data, and the encryption must be automated so that it happens without users’ intervention. This can protect organisations from their own mistakes.
Ian Allder | Published: 10:10 GMT, 21 November 2007
The courier appears to have failed to deliver. That is also serious. Surely this is where the focus should be at this time ? Is this the only missing item ? Expose the courier and lets hear their comment.
Paul Howard, CEO, DISUK (www.disuk.com) | Published: 16:55 GMT, 20 November 2007
There is no mention that the “discs” were encrypted, just that they were password protected. It seems that these large government departments are just not treating their duty of care in the way they should. The fact that already they are saying that the information is simply lost and hence the information will not be used fraudulently indicates their refusal to accept the enormity of the possible consequences if they do not know what has happened to the missing “discs”. Let us hope this might at last get some legislation that will force all government departments, large corporation and the financial industry to take action to protect the information they force the public to divulge to them.