This is the major news today in the UK, that HMRC has lost the personal details of 25 million people comprising of personal details and bank account details. This is the entire database records and an unprecedented data loss. I think people just cannot quite believe this at the moment. Alex who is an expert in such things is quite diplomatic about this but then he is a Lawyer.
The data was being transferred to the National Audit Office, so someone downloaded the records to two discs put them in an internal post system, which actually wasn’t really internal as it’s run by TNT. The discs never arrived! So, how sophisticated are we that this sensitive data cannot be securely transferred electronically from one Government department to another Government Agency. It almost beggars belief and we’re meant to be a first world nation.
The HMRC had to take down its website for child tax credits a while back because there was systematic abuse of the claims process and eventually removed the online system for making claims. HMRC dumped its Technology Partner EDS and is now working with Cap Gemini after the tax credits fiasco as £1.6bn of overpayments were made and will probably be written off.
It simply cannot get any worse than this and saying “sorry” just isn’t good enough any more.
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