Marvellous isn't it? Government breaches the data protection act.

[figurewizard]

Tonight we have the astonishing news that the bank and personal details of some seven million families have been 'lost' having been saved to two discs by an office junior and sent, unrecorded and unregistered to London; where they failed to arrive.

The act says that any organisation holding such data is liable to prosecution if it fails in its 'duty of care'.

What would happen to any of us if we had done this? Has anyone a story to tell about it?

Joe

[Brian Turner]

Dunno, but as I've got three young kids, I can be pretty assured our details are on that list.

[bumfluff]

So if your details have been compromised, will you be suing the government?

[figurewizard]

I'm not allowing the opportunity to arise. I have stopped dealing with my bank online. Now for both personal and business banking I pay for everything with cheques which I send through the post.

I don't blame the banks for this, this latest fiasco is just the most recent and biggest yet of many from this useless, incompetent and devious government.

Joe

[tamecrow]

This has happened before, remember? The data is pretty heavily encrypted so it's unlikely it can ever be read, but that's not really the point.

[figurewizard]

I don't know if you are referring to the data that has been lost in this latest debacle but if you are I have to tell you that HMRC had not encrypted the information.

This was admitted by Alistair Darling (who is to financial management what Steve McClaren is to the art of winning critical football matches) in the House of Commons yesterday. The information is simply password protected. Once that is breached over seven million UK confidential bank and personal details are there for anyone to see and, more to the point - Use.

Joe

[Brian Turner]

Originally Posted by bumfluff

So if your details have been compromised, will you be suing the government?

Get your taxes back!

[Globalart4u]

it's not now that people should watch out, i'd say, but when the hiatus has died down is when if anyone has it then could be used or even during the christmas season when everyone is doing xmas shopping etc.

they were saving money as they did not want to encrypt or even get rid of some of the info as it would mean asking the IT contractor to do it? What i want to know is why they could not do certain things inhouse if they had the software?

and the present government wants 37 bits of our data, including credit card details when we leave the UK - that should be interesting to see how they'll manage to lose that too

[figurewizard]

Since my original post it now turns out that it was a senior and not a junior official in HMRC who authorised this information to be sent through the post, unencrypted. It also appears that the identity of this official is being protected.

Anyone acting in this way is breaking the law. Were such a thing to have happened in a commercial organisation, the person concerned would be summarily dismissed and they, and in all pobability the head honcho too, would have to answer for their actions in a court of law.

So who is this official, when will they get their marching orders and will Alistair Darling be charged?

Joe

[tamecrow]

Originally Posted by figurewizard

Will Alistair Darling be charged?

Why on Earth should he? The buck has to stop much further down than this. It's nothing to do with the Chancellor - HMRC has its own chief execs who should claim full responsibility for this error.