The Government is reeling from a fresh data scandal after the pension details of more than 6,500 people were lost, the Daily Telegraph can disclose.Roll on tomorrow, maybe I shall find that all my information has been outsourced to a handy "data processing" center in Nigeria!
A data cartridge containing the information was misplaced by HM Revenue and Customs, which previously admitted losing two computer discs containing the entire child benefit database and the details of 25 million people.
The pensions cartridge is not encrypted or password protected and contains the details of policy holders with Countrywide Assured plc, leaving them open to the threat of identity fraud.
It holds their names, addresses, dates of birth, National Insurance numbers, a total valuation of their pension fund, the date of that valuation, the amount of their pension contributions and National Insurance rebates received. Their bank account details are not included.
**Even so a major fuck up by another government department.
It was then established that HMRC had received and signed for the original couriered package but had no record of the cartridge.Extensive searches were carried out at HMRC offices but it was never found.
The pensions data loss is the latest blow for Gordon Brown after Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly disclosed yesterday that the records of three million learner drivers had been lost by an American company in Iowa that was contracted to the Driving Standards Agency.
Countrywide chief executive Graham Kettleborough said the data cartridge was designed to be read by an IBM mainframe computer but that did not guarantee it could not fall in to the wrong hands.
He told the Daily Telegraph: “It’s disappointing that when you take the trouble to deliver by courier and get it signed for they can’t find it.“They are causing unnecessary disturbance to a section of our customers, we are clearly not happy and wish it hadn’t happened. We think the risk is limited but we decided we should tell our policy holders.”
The company sent letters to all 6,548 affected people this week. They were advised to check their bank accounts regularly and change any passwords based on their name, address or National Insurance number.
“Any loss of personal data is a serious matter and if the data falls into the wrong hands could result in criminals posing as you in order to obtain financial gain,” policy holders were told.
One of those affected Stephen Hyslop, 61, a financial advisor from Cheshire, said: “The government’s performance on this has been lamentable. An anthill is more organised.
“One is left with a feeling of complete impotence in respect of one’s private details. It’s not like this is a one off, it’s endemic.”
Two weeks ago HMRC’s acting chairman Dave Hartnett admitted to the Treasury subcommittee that there had been seven significant breaches of security involving loss of personal data since Gordon Brown merged the Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise into a single department in 2005.
An HMRC spokesman said the pensions data loss was one of those seven incidents.
The delay of weeks in telling policy holders their details were missing was due to the searches that were being carried out for the cartridge at HMRC, the spokesman said.
“It is very unlikely that any unauthorised person would be able to access the customer information due to the nature of the medium on which the data is held,” the spokesman said.
“We are taking this loss extremely seriously and have done everything possible to locate the data cartridge. We would like to apologise to all those affected.”
The loss has been reported to the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas and the Financial Services Authority, the spokesman said.
Like the real clowns of the big top, the clowning around by New Labour losing our information is not funny either.
Tags HMRC
Lost Data
Cool Britannia
Lunacy
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