Mums Finance

The Dept of Revenue and Customs, as well as the Govt, has gone into massive damage control mode since a junior civil servant ‘lost’ the personal details of 25 million child benefit recipients this week. The personal information of every parent in the UK was downloaded onto two unencrypted CD discs and subsequently lost in the mail.

The population are questioning how a junior civil servant had access to such sensitive data; the fact is he/she would have been authorised in line with their job. But he/she was totally unauthorised to simply post via mail these discs. He/she should have followed dept guidelines and personally delivered these discs to their destination.

Fears of the threat of identity fraud are being taken seriously with people being urged to keep a check on their bank account details. Information such as this would be a veritable gold mine should it fall into the wrong hands and could easily be released around the world via the internet within a matter of hours. No wonder the people are angry and no wonder Alistair Darling and his colleagues are ducking for cover.

The writers of ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ would have a field day with this one.

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