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FIFTEEN MILLION Child Benefit Records lost by Inland Revenue and Customs
The Inland Revenue (now Revenue and Customs) have lost disks containing the details and bank references of FIFTEEN MILLION Child Benefit claimants.
The Chairman of Revenue and Customs - Paul Gray - has resigned.
Radio 5 Report (30s):
Radio 4 Report (3 minutes):
From the BBC:
Revenue and customs chief quits
Alistair DarlingChancellor Alistair Darling will make a Commons statement at 1530
The chairman of Revenue and Customs, Paul Gray, has resigned.The resignation follows reports about the loss of taxpayers’ confidential details, although it is not known if that is why he has decided to quit.
The news comes ahead of a Commons statement by Chancellor Alistair Darling on “a major operational problem” at HM Revenue & Customs.
The statement, Mr Darling’s second in two days, will be made to MPs at 1530 GMT in the House of Commons.
Government has known for 10 days
Get this bit - Ministers have (according to Radio 5) known about this for 10 days, and have apparently said nothing.
Perhaps they were - in the normal fashion - hoping that it would not come out.
Someone will have roast nuts for dinner this evening.
More details as they Emerge
Apparently the transport method was in violation of data protection guidelines.
Paul Gray appears to have done the honourable thing.
My comment
The astonishing factors here are firstly that they didn’t follow their own procedures (it isn’t difficult - just tedious), and that no announcement has been made for more than a week. Fifteen million is a lot of people not to trust you any more.
Does anybody still believe in the utility of a central computerised database for ID Cards?
Tags: revenue and customs, alistair darling mp, inland revenue, paul gray, chancellor, chancellor of the exchequer, child benefit identity theft, fifteen million, data loss, child benefit records, data security
[tags]revenue and customs, alistair darling mp, inland revenue, paul gray, chancellor, chancellor of the exchequer, child benefit identity theft, fifteen million, data loss, child benefit records, data security[/tags][tags]revenue and customs, alistair darling, inland revenue[/tags]
Article Series - HMRC - Child Benefit Data Lost
- FIFTEEN MILLION Child Benefit Records lost by Inland Revenue and Customs
- Revenue-Gate, or Revenue Cultural Problem?
- Audio of Statement about Loss of Child Benefit Data by Revenue and Customs: Alistair Darling MP’
- God (and security) is in the Detail of the Business Systems: Child Benefit Data Loss
- Statement to the House of Commons by Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, MP, on HMRC
- Systematic or Incidental Failure?: Hot Issue of the Day: Child Benefit Data Loss
- Numbercrunching the Child Benefit Data Loss: Request for Clarification
- A week is a long time in the Inland Revenue … : Hot Issue of the Week
This is big and Darling is just getting himself in to hotter and hotter water. It was always a strange appointment from Brown - I felt he should have gone with Jack Straw. Straw’s time may well be drawing ever nearer as a result of this. However, would he want to be chancellor now, especially given Brown’s iron grip on the department?
I will take you up on one point though. I do not think 10 days is that ridiculous a length of time for the HMRC to sit on this. You can’t expect departments to go public the second they realise something has gone wrong or we’d probably get a story every other day. It might have been that the problem could have been sorted in a day or two or there were innocent reasons for the mistake and there would be no need for it to be made public. Had this gone on for a few weeks then that would be a different story. I think 10 days (max) is a reasonable time for the department to gather the facts, try and resolve the issue and get things straight. The need to gather the facts is not so they can spin some yarn about what happened, but so that when Darling gets an absolute roasting by the commons and press he knows all the facts.
There are plenty of other angles on this story that should signal the end for Darling rather than not breaking the story straight away.
Garbo
Sorry to post on top of your column’s slot, but I thought it was justified - and I had a chance to grab the audio.
On the 10 days, I think a “holding” announcement should have been made on something on this scale. That’s what I would have done, but then I’m not in politics. It looks too suspicious after all the other non-announcements imho.
From the Beeb list of Qus:
When will more details be learned?
Chancellor Alistair Darling is making a statement to the House of Commons at 1530, in which he is expected to outline the steps that have been taken since the discs were lost. He will also be asked why the loss of the details was not made public immediately.
Matt
No problem about the timing of the posting - this is a biggie as you say and, after all, this is your blog!
Will be interested to see his explanation as to why it wasn’t made public sooner…
… watching him now. This is worse than I thought. Maybe 10 days was too long. Address, NI nos. and bank account details?! Unbelievable. Darling is finished.
… it also wasn’t ten days from the tapes going missing to now, but 10 days since Darling admits to hearing about it. Disastrous.
I’ll be posting the audio of the statement tomorrow, and a transcript if I can find one.
Has anyone else noticed that the lost data was ‘consigned’ by an ‘internal transfer’ system that utilises the Dutch Post Office and TNT Holland NV?
Ignoring the huge question of this data being sent by any insecure, unencrypted method in the first place, what is the logic in sending data from the UK DHSS to the UK National Audit Office via a system that appears to be totally controlled and owned by ‘foreign’ nationals?
Personally I have no problem with the Dutch, far from it, they are, in every respect nice people. But the principle seems to be both fatally and irreversible flawed in that items of National Security are ‘consigned’ via a system and a company which is totally beyond our national control. Am I missing something here??
As someone who has been closely associated with the IT industry since the early 70’s I am simply gobsmacked at this gross negligence. However, I am EVEN MORE DISMAYED at the BBC 10.00 News which recommends NOT contacting your bank.
My family is a likely candidate on this lost database, and I consider the risk of further troubles to be high enough to demand action. At the very least I intend to get Child Benefit paid into a different account, and will possibly seek to close the old account and open a new one in order to ensure that any lost bank details are no longer valid.
Worst case this could bring down the UK Banking System (Northern Rock is a mere pimple).
Does the UK have Class Action lawsuits?
Yes I think so. But when it is 25 million people and the government you will effectively be suing yourselves… (and me).
anyone started that class action suit yet ?? if so point me in the right direction.