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British Government Loses Data On 25 Million Citizens

by Terrence O'Brien on November 26, 2007 at 11:02 AM

British Government Loses Data On Up To 25 Million Citizens
Data loss happens. But all the past instances of carelessness have been dwarfed by the sheer magnitude of the loss suffered by the British government. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) office lost discs containing highly sensitive data, including names, dates of birth, bank account numbers, and home addresses of up to 25 million of its citizens.

These discs, which could represent up to 40 percent of the British population, are not encrypted. Rather, they are merely password protected, meaning that if they fell into the wrong hands, the information on them could be fairly easily extracted. Lets just hope it isn't one of the passwords on this list.

The HMRC has no reason to believe that the information is in the hands of criminals. This catastrophic loss of data comes only two months after the HMRC lost information on 15,000 customers of the Standard Life insurance company. This has led the already normally combative parliament to get even more feisty with Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who opposition leaders say is trying to shirk responsibility in this issue. To his credit, though, Brown has ordered an investigation, and has granted his Information Commissioner new powers to spot-check agencies to ensure the security of data.

From BetaNews

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Tags: british, data, government, hmrc, loss, security

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