Wednesday, November 21, 2007

7th Week: Whoops...

So, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs have lost two discs containing records for every UK family claiming child benefit in the post. Sky News emphasises this point: "It means that the personal details of every family in the country with a child under 16 have gone missing."

And this is the Government that wants to create a central database containing personal and biometric data for every single person living in the UK.

The Government that claims such a central database will be "in the interest of national security".

Why were they even sending the records by post? Has nobody told them of "the Internet"?

So apparently the discs were "password-protected"... what on earth that means, nobody knows (certainly not the Government). Thank goodness the BBC know some computer 'experts': "Experts say such data should normally be sent in encrypted form." Oh really?

To close with an Internet nerd-ism: Epic fail.

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