UK Government loses personal data of 25m people

[David Farber <dfarber () cs cmu edu>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Denis Russell <D.M.Russell () ncl ac uk>
Date: November 21, 2007 3:32:08 AM EST
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: UK Government loses personal data of 25m people

Dave,
	Headline news in the UK is of a new world record. "On Tuesday the  
chancellor told MPs how the entire child benefit database was sent by  
a junior official from HMRC in Newcastle to the audit office in London  
through courier TNT on 18 October." ... and was lost:
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7104945.stm>

At least this has provoked some sensible (for a change) debate on the  
care of personal data. The BBC Newsnight had a good debate on the  
subject last night including Ross Andeson. At the moment the video is  
still online via <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/default.stm 
> and will be for a week I believe.

At least there may be one silver lining to this cloud, there is now  
widespread comment that the security risk of large centralized  
databases may actually be appreciated and this may "have dealt a body  
blow to the government's plans for a national ID card scheme". I'll  
believe that when I see it.

        Denis.


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