UK: Catastrophic Loss of Personal Data on Millions of Parents
November 21st, 2007Via: Telegraph:
Every parent in the country has been put at risk of fraud and identity theft after the Government lost 25 million personal records in Britain’s worst ever data protection breach.
Two compact discs containing bank details and addresses of 9.5 million parents and the names, dates of birth and National Insurance numbers of all 15.5 million children in the country went missing after a junior employee of HM Revenue and Customs put them in the post, unrecorded and unregistered.
Alistair Darling, already under pressure over the Northern Rock crisis, revealed the “inexcusable†blunder to incredulous MPs, admitting that there was still no trace of the CDs more than a month after they went missing.
The Chancellor, who first learnt of the “catastrophic†breach eleven days ago but only disclosed the first details, insisted there was no evidence the information “has found its way into the wrong handsâ€.
But experts warned that the data could be hoarded for years by criminal gangs before being used to commit fraud on an unparalleled scale.
It means every family in the country will have to remain vigilant for years to come, keeping a close watch on their finances for any sign of fraud.
The discs – which were not encrypted – also contained all the information a criminal would need to commit identity theft by applying for loans, credit cards and goods in someone else’s name.
