For those of you living outside the UK who might not have heard this dismal story, a hapless functionary at the HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs) sent 2 CDs containing the personal details of all families in the United Kingdom claiming child benefit to a firm of accountants who were contracted to audit the accounts of HMRC.
On the 20th of November, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (equivalent to a Minister of Finance) announced that the 2 CDs had gone missing.
This is thought to affect approximately 25 million individuals and 7.5 million families in the UK. The discs which have gone missing include such personal details as:
* Name
* Date of birth
* National insurance number (Social Security Number)
* Bank details, where relevant
Obviously, this incredible lapse of security generated a vast amount of news coverage here in the UK, and a huge outpouring of spin, flannel and bullshit from our government. As the days went by since this fiasco was unveiled, there has been a growing sense of public disbelief in the sheer ineptitude and massively stupid behaviour of the ministry.
In moments like these, when techie matters are at the heart of a scandal, and displays of unbelievable governmental cretinism rock the headlines and the leader pages, I turn to The Register for a calm, balanced analysis. “El Reg” never fails to inject just the right note of dispassionate reason into the howling blamefest whipped up by the media.
So, here’s a link to Mark Whitehorn giving you a cold analysis of the situation from the point of view of a database administrator. After all it was a humble database administrator who sent those 2 CDs off into the unknown protected only by a password.
I hope this chilling statement from another government contractor will tempt you to read on….
The TimesOnLine reports that:
Shawn Williams, of Rose, Williams and Partners, a legal firm in Wolverhampton that deals with tax fraud cases, said his firm frequently received discs that contained personal data from the HMRC with the password included. ‘Sometimes there is no security at all, sometimes there are instructions telling you how to access the data, sometimes the password is just written on a compliments slip and included with the disc’.
The comments by The Register’s regular readers, (Nearly 100% of whom work in IT) provide a cool, controlled perspective on the technical issues surrounding this pile of steaming ordure dropped on our po’ white asses by the Flying Cretini Bothers governmental blunder.
There’s even a Wikipedia page devoted to the scandal.
And Nick Robinson’s BBC blog has an impressively long comment tail here.
2 Comments
I love it when you get angry. I don’t mean to make light of this story, just - you do put it so well.
One of the few benefits of “this lot”, as the late Alan Coren called them, is that they provide a necessary, safe and legitimate target for the venting of spleen in all its rainbow hues.
I’ve often been described as an angry man, and it’s true. My childhood provided me with deep resources of the stuff, but I like to think that as I mellow with age, I’ve learned not to spit great molten gobbets of ire in all directions, hurting the feelings of blameless people close to me, but to train my ranting towards a more deserving (but ironically a completely unfeeling) target.
Aah, I feel much better now! Especially as I have just honoured the pledge I made back in 2005 to the NO2ID Campaign legal fund. Send them a tenner! It’s the best constructively angry gesture you can make against “this lot”, and their poxy ID cards. Pshaw!