UK Gov't Loses Data on 25 Million People... Including Bank Details

from the we're-from-the-gov't,-and-we're-here-to... dept

Tue, Nov 20th 2007 3:50pm — Mike Masnick

At this point, you should probably just assume that all your private data is in the hands of someone who shouldn't have it. However, if it's not, you can rest assured that private companies and universities and government agencies are hard at work making sure they leak your data to someone who shouldn't have it. The latest takes place in the UK, where a gov't agency appears to have lost two CDs containing the personal details, sometimes including bank info, of all families with children under 16. Everyone involved seems to admit this is a colossal screw up, but that's pretty much what is said each time one of these happens, and yet we keep hearing of more. As per usual, the blame is being placed on "junior" staffers who supposedly didn't follow security procedures, so we'll probably see a few people fired and then we'll all forget about it for another month or so until the next big data leak comes along.

Filed Under: data leak, uk

9 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 20 Nov 2007 @ 4:14pm

UK leads the world in somethings.

notice how bottler brown is out of the country... again
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Overcast, 20 Nov 2007 @ 4:45pm

It's such a GOOD idea trusting national economies to databases!
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GeneralEmergency (profile), 20 Nov 2007 @ 5:26pm

We need a new information monopoly legal framework
...for the "Information Spill" age.

All personally identifiable information about me should be my property and I should have copyright style monopoly powers over such information. Let's call it "IdentityRight". Spill the information that I have licensed to you for some purpose, the contract says you pay me N dolars in compensation. Get caught holding unlicensed information about me?? Criminal offense.

Ok, somebody ...please... slap me before I develop this idea any further.
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- Anonymous Coward, 20 Nov 2007 @ 6:16pm
  
  Re: We need a new information monopoly legal frame
  Easy. Just change your name to Copyright 2007 then you'll have a copyright notice in every one of your personal records.
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- Johnny Foreigner, 21 Nov 2007 @ 4:38pm
  
  Re: We need a new information monopoly legal frame
  Bloody Good Idea
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Dr. Evil, 20 Nov 2007 @ 7:56pm

BwaaHaHaHa
If you want your data kept secret, you'll have to pay me ONE MILLION DOLLARS ... err huh ? that's ONE BILLION DOLLARS !
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SteveD, 21 Nov 2007 @ 12:48am

Just say No to ID Cards
Hopefully this will torpedo the goverments ID card schemes once and for all. No one will ever trust them after this.
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- John D, 21 Nov 2007 @ 1:17am
  
  Re: Just say No to ID Cards
  I wish! They seem hellbent on it, despite all the down side
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Sean, 23 Nov 2007 @ 6:13am

Firing people...
What's worse is the Audit guys specifically asked for a scrubbed copy 'cos they didn't want any confidential information (and all the headaches that having it brings), and the Treasury managers refused 'cos it'd incur extra cost.
I wouldn't fire the poor sod who lost the disks, but the following list;
*Supervisor, for not supervising
*Manager, for not managing
*Owner of the DB, for having an incredibly stupid DB where a "junior staffer" has access to download 25m records
*Whoever negotiated and signed off on the out-sourcing deal that says scrubbing confidential data is an extra cost
*The person who decided not to incur that extra cost

I'd also like to see the outsourcing contract cancelled and re-tendered.

We can all dream... but dreaming of pink fluffy elephants might be slightly more realistic.
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