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UK Government Loses 15 Million Private Records
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Nov 20, 2007 11:26 AM
from the that's-gotta-hurt dept.
from the that's-gotta-hurt dept.
bestweasel writes "The BBC reports that a UK Government department has lost discs with details of 15 million benefit recipients, including names, addresses, date of birth and bank accounts. The head of the department involved, HM Revenue & Customs, has resigned and his resignation 'was accepted because discs had been transported in breach of rules governing data protection' so someone thinks it's not a trivial matter. The Chancellor will try to evade responsibility in the House of Commons at 3.30 GMT.
A similar leak of a 'mere' 15,000 records from the same department happened a month or so ago. At that time, they refused to say 'on security grounds' whether the information was encrypted." We just recently talked about Britain's consideration of legal penalties for situations like this. I imagine this incident will weigh on that decision.
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Losing Personal Info On A Laptop Could Get You Charged 199 comments
E5Rebel writes "The UK's data protection watchdog has called for legislation that would punish corporate or government officials with access to the public's personal data ... who lose it. Unencrypted laptops with this personal information which are lost or stolen will see their owners facing criminal charges. 'HM Revenue and Customs is among the organisations that have recently suffered high profile data security breaches as a result of laptops being lost or stolen. The HMRC laptop containing taxpayer data was encrypted - but other organisations have often failed to encrypt their machines.'"
[+]
IRS Data Security Still a Concern 54 comments
Lucas123 writes "Computerworld has a story about the possibility and the potential ramifications of an IRS data loss similar to the UK's recent mishap. According to one World Bank executive, it could have already happened, 'and we don't know about it.' While the IRS does offer data encryption to its workers, more than half of its 94,000 employees have permission to take taxpayer information to locations outside the IRS offices. In the 2007 filing season, roughly 128 million individual tax returns were filed. In addition to the basic personal information on those forms, an IRS breach could also jeopardize the banking information of the 46% of filers who requested direct deposit refunds. This is not the first time that IRS security has been called into question, and the Department of Treasury's progress in that arena is dubious. [PDF]"
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25 million now... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:25 million now... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:25 million now... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
True in theory. The facts of the matter are these:
1. The UK parliament consists of two houses: Commons and Lords. By constitutional convention, the Lords cannot block legislation agreed by the Commons; they can only delay it
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Even if they didn't since they are not a person it's kind of hard to put them in prison.
Personally I think it was honourable of Paul Grey (HMRC's Chairman) to resign.
It's not
Re:25 million now... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Shutting down
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
IMHO part of a solution here would be to change things such that the only thing
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Which IMHO is really the wrong approach. Far better to make the kind of information involved of little value to anyone else.
Which means rethinking the concepts of "identity" and "proof
Re:25 million now... (Score:4, Interesting)
Of particular interest is the fact that it was sent twice. Once again, by recorded delivery, after the initial package was lost in transit.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How can you be shocked? This is government we're talking about... doesn't matter the country. As soon as you give one group of people anywhere the power to run the whole show, they break down into three categories:
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Three times! (Score:5, Insightful)
The real WTFs here are
Ok, it's probably worse than that though.
Re:Three times! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Three times! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Three times! (Score:4, Informative)
It's Child Benefit, not 'the dole'. Child Benefit is paid to the primary carer of all children in the UK, and is not means tested. According to the article, 7.5 million families are affected, which from the figure of 25 million people, results in an average of 3.3333 people's details per family.
Re:Three times! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
He's having a shit week, what with Northern Rock potentially costing taxpayers half a billion, and now this fiasco.
How do you lose 15 million sets of personal data in the post?
Don't the government have couriers for this sort of thing?
However,
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"As we stand at present, every taxpayer in Britain has something approaching £900 of their money at stake in this small mortgage bank following the £24 billion loan (which excludes
For crying out loud (Score:3, Informative)
"As we stand at present, every taxpayer in Britain has something approaching £900 of their money at stake[1] in this small mortgage bank following the £24 billion loan (which excludes the less controversial £18 billion in deposit guarantees).
It's a bank loan from the central bank. Not a penny of money you have paid in tax has been given to Northern Rock. Not a penny of government borrowing has been given to Northern Rock.
[1]I'm a Lib
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:25 million now... (Score:5, Insightful)
yeah, it'll weigh on them (Score:3, Interesting)
Just watch and wait.
Re:yeah, it'll weigh on them (Score:5, Funny)
That should read 'on job security grounds'
And they expect us to trust them... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And they expect us to trust them... (Score:5, Funny)
15 or 25? (Score:2)
Anyway, Names and phone addresses aren't really that hard to get, but to have your bank account information compromised must SUCK.
Of course, banks should requi
Trust them with the national ID card program now? (Score:3, Insightful)
Trust the Government (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea of burning an unencrypted copy of your sensitive data to a DVD and handing it to a random delivery company should horrify even the most incompetent sysadmin or DBA. Apparently no one in HM Customs & Revenue thought anything of it.
These are the sorts of people who want to build a massive database of all our personal details and tie them to ID cards. They tell us the data will be "perfectly safe". I wouldn't trust them to run a mail server.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Thanks for pointing this out, which I entirely agree with. I also agree with the first response to your post, which is that it's like this all through the private sector, too. The difference is that government organisations actually have to be directly ac
EpicRaidGet (Score:2)
Where's the Backup? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes... destroy all the records! Leave 'em guessing!
Seriously, it's preposterous to talk of data retention strategies and forcing people to be part of national data banks when there's absolutely no talk about how you're going to make it secure. I would li
This give us hope (Score:4, Funny)
In a country where you are watched by security camera most of the day, and can be detained without charge for longer than anywhere on Earth, it is reassuring to note that the UK Government is so incredibly incompetent that there will always be a way to escape. No need for tunnels, gliders, or under the floor of a Trabant -- it should be pretty much possible to just walk through the border with a library card altered in crayon.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Those who ignore history.... (Score:2)
I wonder how they'll ever figure out how to punish the offenders.... [slashdot.org]
Offering 100,000 - 1 odds it was clear text (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Offering 100,000 - 1 odds it was clear text (Score:4)
Although, considering that the government is using the time taken to break decryption as an excuse to raise the time they can hold 'terrorists' without charge, they probably want to avoid mentioning that.
Re:Offering 100,000 - 1 odds it was clear text (Score:5, Funny)
Oh please. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just wait till it's our DNA and Fingerprints (Score:3, Informative)
Just trying to help (Score:5, Funny)
That's where I always lose things.
They might be there.
Why refuse to tell if it was encrypted or not? (Score:3, Informative)
If it's not encrypted, when the files are opened it will look like (or something really obvious):
Joe Public DOB: xx-xx-xxxx 12345 Main Street
If it is encrypted it will look like:
982n5o39y8h5014u9m9p!#$`15235098h14n12#$!@3476bwfSFR2387rn@!#12987ksafdkjD
It doesn't take a fucking genious to figure out if a file is encrypted or not. And its not like they are going to told what alog it is encrypted with if it is encrypted. I can see no reason NOT to tell the public if the data is encrypted or not, so the public knows what kind of precautions or steps may be needed to protect their identity.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Listen up, Brits (Score:4, Funny)
of that bunch of God-bothering homophobic nutjobs. Enjoy the
Turkey.
Toodle pip!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because civil servants have no idea how to protect themselves from getting shafted by software suppliers, and no financial incentive to learn, essentially. Also, the government has an extreme aver