Data Loss

Ministers under fire over records

On Tuesday the chancellor told MPs how the entire child benefit database was sent by a junior official from HMRC in Washington, Tyne and Wear, to the audit office in London through courier TNT on 18 October. The information was contained on two CDs.

The chancellor said the official had broken the rules by downloading the data to disc and sending it by unrecorded delivery, and UNENCRYPTED.

But he reassured those affected that police had no reason to believe the discs had found their way into the wrong hands, nor did they have any evidence of it being used for “fraudulent purposes or criminal activity.”

Bosses at the Revenue were not told about what had happened until 8 November and Mr Darling and Prime Minister Gordon Brown learned about the situation on 10 November.

I sincerely hope the chancellor is correct, but the whole incident strikes me as bizarre. A ‘junior official’ should never have access to the entire child benefit database, not only in terms of data protection, but also child protection.

I can’t think of any reasons why anyone would download the entire database and send it elsewhere by unrecorded post, other than incompetence or malice.

Not only that, but they waited two days before informing the chancellor and the Prime Minister. ‘The officials involved waited before informing their superiors in the hope that the discs would be found.’ This is outrageous - not only do they make an almighty cock-up, but they wait a couple of days before telling the Prime Minister. For a loss of some data perhaps this would be acceptable - but 25m records of the most confidential information..!