Child Benefit Data Goes Missing
Secret personal details of all families receiving child benefit have been lost by civil servants in the latest Government embarrassment.The child benefit data includes the name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and some bank details of 25 million people, from seven million families.
The scale of the loss means that information on senior politicians, police officers and industrialists will be included in the missing data which contains records on nearly half the UK’s 60.5 million population.
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MPs in the Commons gasped as Chancellor Alistair Darling revealed the scale of the loss in an emergency statement.
The data is missing after being posted – in breach of the rules – from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to the National Audit Office. The chairman of the HMRC, Paul Gray, resigned yesterday, but Downing Street were quick to stress that PM Gordon Brown has full confidence in the Chancellor.
Mr Darling apologised for what he described as an “extremely serious failure on the part of HMRC to protect sensitive personal data entrusted to it in breach of its own guidelines”.
Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said that the Government needed to “get a grip and deliver a basic level of competence”.
Mr Darling told MPs that the police had been called in and there was no evidence the information “has found its way into the wrong hands” or of any evidence that it has been used for fraud. He said bank customers would be protected against any losses through fraud by the Banking Code, and said that while there was no need for individuals to contact their banks, people should monitor their accounts and report any suspicious activity. He stressed yesterday, “There is no evidence this data has reached the wrong hands. There is no evidence of fraud or criminal activity. Banks and building societies are putting in place safeguards to protect people’s accounts. No one will suffer any loss if they are an innocent victim of fraud.”
Inquiries are continuing into how the extraordinary security lapse occurred.
A junior official working for HMRC at Washington, Tyne and Wear, copied the organisation’s entire child benefit data onto two discs, in response to a request from the National Audit Office. Both the request and the decision to send the discs were a breach of the Government’s security protocols. The discs were sent using the HMRC’s internal post system, which is operated by courier firm TNT, but never arrived at the NAO’s offices in London. A further copy of the data was sent by registered post, once it was found the first discs had not arrived. This package did arrive at the NAO. The data went missing on October 18, but the loss was not reported to senior HMRC management until November 8, three weeks later.
Mr Darling said he was informed on November 10, and on November 14 he ordered Mr Gray to call in the police.
Mr Osborne said, “The Chancellor has serious questions to answer, and faces the huge task of restoring the public’s confidence in his department.
“He will have to demonstrate over the next few weeks that he is capable of doing this.”
The Metropolitan Police said that “active inquiries are being made to try to recover the data in order to protect the public” and said it could not confirm any further details.
20 November 2007
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