Trust in UK government tech lost on two CDs

Trust in government tech lost on two CDs

news.zdnet.co.uk

t's hard to believe that a body charged with the personal details of 25 million people could allow that entire database to be downloaded to discs, and lost.

Harder still to believe is the government's fumbling explanation of such a mind-numbingly huge loss of data. For a start, we had the chancellor of the exchequer, Alistair Darling, stood at the despatch box in parliament today stressing that people are not at risk of ID fraud. He added that banks will reimburse any losses.

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Related News Links:
www.telegraph.co.uk

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Britain Plans Fingerprinting of all 11y/o by 2010
Schools' Fingerprinting Agenda

Mod Edit; clarified Title

[edit on 11/21/07 by FredT]

This type of security breach will become ever more common with time, because the government's appetite for personal data will not wane anytime soon.

It is imho, clear as day that it's only a matter of time until biometric data will be affected by these leaks, which will then remain 'burned' ie. unusable for life, seeing as you can't change DNA sequences, fingerprints or facial features easily if at all. Such data can and inevitably will be used to arbitrarily discriminate against people later in live.

news.zdnet.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

Just finished my admission to this incredible story and you beat me Lance!

OK, you earned it. Not to let it all go lost, here's my comment.

This happened a month ago, but we all know how slow snail-mail can be. So they waited 3 weeks for it to show up before a superior was informed about the delayed postal pack, now most likely never to show up.

Unbelievable!

Not that they got lost in the post, it happens all the time, but that they are using a medieval method like courier to send data.

They never heard of file transfer or e-mail?

Well, it was a junior official, and obviously he was no nerd in the system. But he knew how to burn a disc.

So you folks in UK who get child benefits, better watch your accounts.


And links:

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk...

news.bbc.co.uk...

I've got a suspicion that this has been a deliberate mistake from the inside - prob someone opposed to ID cards, and as a bonus they will probably make a bit of cash flogging the data on to a 3rd party.

Originally posted by Now_Then
I've got a suspicion that this has been a deliberate mistake from the inside - prob someone opposed to ID cards, and as a bonus they will probably make a bit of cash flogging the data on to a 3rd party.

the question is how many people would know about the contents of that package, its routing schedule and have an opportunity to intercept it at the same time. might be an attempt at sabotage, who knows, unfortunately, i severely doubt governments will ever reconsider all-out data mining.


to show you how quickly data leaks might damage you and everyone around you, take the following, harmless example:

www.digitaljournal.com...

A British woman who wanted to start a new life in New Zealand with her husband was refused entry by New Zealand. Reason given by the Immigration authorities – she was too fat and will be a burden to health care system.
Rowan Trezise, 33 and her husband Richie Trezise, 35 were planning to move from their home, England to New Zealand, but because she was overweight, New Zealand banned her from entering the country.

based on her body mass index...

with this example in mind, imagine for one second that genetic profiles got leaked instead and the latest craze was a newly found 'AMOK' gene, ostensibly shared by most school shooters. what do you think, would your employer retrieve a copy of your data? what if you had it? would you stand any chance or simply be fired at the next best opportunity??

If it is just data, why post it ?, wouldn't it have been safer to send it over a secure network line fully encrypted ? . Unless there is an ulterior motive and there was no disc lost , get the people in fear, that is the agenda these days .

[edit on 21-11-2007 by Gun Totin Gerbil]

[edit on 21-11-2007 by Gun Totin Gerbil]

Originally posted by Gun Totin Gerbil
If it is just data, why post it ?

never underestimate the stupidity of public service beurocrats.

Originally posted by pieman

never underestimate the stupidity of public service beurocrats.

In my minds eye I can see the envelope with "Please make sure this very important package arrives at the destination as it has all the information we can collate on 25 million people in it" in red marker.

I wonder how common it is for couriers to take a peek in packages they know are coming from or going to interesting addresses? Can't be very hard to repackage them and say it got damaged in transit.

Bodrul started a discussion on this here if you're interested

Originally posted by Gun Totin GerbilUnless there is an ulterior motive and there was no disc lost , get the people in fear, that is the agenda these days .

No, No, No. I really don't believe for one minute that an incumbent government would knowingly incite fear by demonstrating their own ineptness - there are far more efficient ways of inciting fear.

Losing 25m bank account details is not one of them.